Ctbrarp  of  Che  Cbeolocjical  ^emmarjp 

PRINCETON  *  NEW  JERSEY 

•3  *5^8* 

PRESENTED  BY 


John  Stuart  Conning,  D.D. 

DS  145  . L4  1903  c.l 
Lazare,  Bernard,  1865-1903. 
Antisemitism 


y  i  MAK 

BERNARD  LAZARE, 


ANTISEMITISM 

ITS  HISTORY  AND  CAUSES* 


TRANSLATED  FROM  THE  FRENCH. 


PUBLISHED  BY 

THE  INTERNATIONAL  LIBRARY  PUBLISHING  CO., 
23  DUANE  STREET,  NEW  YORK. 


Copyright,  1903, 

By  The  International  Library  Publishing  Co. 


Antisemitism,  Its  History  and  Causes. 


preface. 


Portions  of  this  book,  which  at  various  times  ap¬ 
peared  in  the  newspapers  and  periodicals,  received  the 
honor  of  being  noticed  and  discussed.  This  has  induced 
me  to  write  the  few  lines  that  follow.  I  have  been 
charged  by  some  with  being  an  antisémite,  by  others, 
with  exhibiting  too  great  bias  in  defending  the  Jews,  and 
my  writings  have  been  judged  either  from  the  anti- 
semitic  or  the  philosemitic  standpoint.  This  is  wrong, 
for  I  am  neither  an  antisémite  nor  a  philosemite  ;  it  has 
been  my  intention  to  write  neither  an  apology  nor  a 
diatribe,  but  an  impartial  study  in  history  and  sociology. 

I  do  not  approve  of  antisemitism;  it  is  a  narrow, 
one-sided  view,  still  I  have  sought  to  account  for  it.  It 
was  not  born  without  cause,  I  have  searched  for  its 
causes.  Whether  I  have  succeeded  in  discovering  them, 
it  is  for  the  reader  to  decide. 

An  opinion  as  general  as  antisemitism,  which  has 
flourished  in  all  countries  and  in  all  ages,  before  and 
after  the  Christian  era,  at  Alexandria,  Rome,  and  An- 
tiachia,  in  Arabia,  and  in  Persia,  in  mediaeval  and  in 
modern  Europe,  in  a  word,  in  all  parts  of  the  world 
wherever  there  are  or  have  been  J ews, — such  an  opinion, 
it  has  seemed  to  me,  could  not  spring  from  a  mere  whim 
or  fancy,  but  must  be  the  effect  of  deep  and  serious 
causes. 


6 


It  has,  therefore,  been  my  aim  to  draw  a  full-size  pic¬ 
ture  of  antisemitism,  of  its  history  and  causes,  to  fol¬ 
low  its  successive  changes  and  transformations.  Such  a 
study  might  easily  fill  volumes.  I  have,  therefore,  been 
obliged  to  limit  its  scope,  confining  myself  to  broad  out¬ 
lines  and  omitting  details.  I  hope  to  take  up,  at  no  dis¬ 
tant  day,  some  of  its  aspects  which  could  only  be  hinted 
at  here,  and  I  shall  then  endeavor  to  show  what  has 
been  the  intellectual,  moral,  economic  and  revolutionary 
role  of  the  Jew  in  the  world. 

The  Author. 


ANTISEMITISM. 


CHAPTER  I. 

GENERAL  CAUSES  OF  ANTISEMITISM. 

Exclusiveness. — The  Political  and  Religious  Cult. — Je¬ 
hovah  and  the  Law. — Civil  and  Religious  Regu¬ 
lations. — J  ewish  Colonies. — The  Talmud. — The 
Chosen  People  Doctrine. — Jewish  Pride. — Separa¬ 
tion  from  the  Nations. — Pollution. — The  Pharisees 
and  the  Rabbinites. — The  Faith,  Tradition  and  Sec¬ 
ular  Science. — The  Triumph  of  the  Talmudists. — 
Jewish  Patriotism. — The  Mystic  Fatherland. — The 
Restoration  of  the  Kingdom  of  Israel. — The  Isola¬ 
tion  of  the  Jew  . 

To  make  the  history  of  antisemitism  complete,  omit¬ 
ting  none  of  the  manifestations  of  this  sentiment  and 
following  its  divers  phases  and  modifications,  it  is  ne¬ 
cessary  to  go  into  the  history  of  Israel  since  its  disper¬ 
sion,  or,  more  properly  speaking,  since  the  beginning  of 
its  expansion  beyond  the  boundaries  of  Palestine. 

Wherever  the  Jews  settled  after  ceasing  to  be  a  nation 


8 


ready  to  defend  its  liberty  and  independence,  one  ob¬ 
serves  the  development  of  antisemitism,  or  rather  anti- 
J udaism  ;  for  antisemitism  is  an  ill-chosen  word, 
which  has  its  raison  d’etre  only  in  onr  day,  when  it  is 
sought  to  broaden  this  strife  between  the  Jew  and  the 
Christians  by  supplying  it  with  a  philosophy  and  a 
metaphysical,  rather  than  a  material  reason.  If  this 
hostility,  this  repugnance  had  been  shown  towards  the 
Jews  at  one  time  or  in  one  country  only,  it  would  be 
easy  to  account  for  the  local  causes  of  this  sentiment. 
But  this  race  has  been  the  object  of  hatred  with  all  the 
nations  amidst  whom  it  ever  settled.  Inasmuch  as  the 
enemies  of  the  Jews  belonged  to  divers  races;  as  they 
dwelled  far  apart  from  one  another,  were  ruled  by  differ¬ 
ent  laws  and  governed  by  opposite  principles;  as  they 
had  not  the  same  customs  and  differed  in  spirit  from 
one  another,  so  that  they  could  not  possibly  judge  alike 
of  any  subject,  it  must  needs  be  that  the  general  causes 
of  antisemitism  have  always  resided  in  Israel  itself, 
and  not  in  those  who  antagonized  it. 

This  does  not  mean  that  justice  was  always  on  the  side 
of  Israel’s  persecutors,  or  that  they  did  not  indulge  in  all 
the  extremes  born  of  hatred;  it  is  merely  asserted  that 
the  Jews  were  themselves,  in  part,  at  least,  the  cause 
of  their  own  ills. 

Considering  the  unanimity  of  antisemitic  manifes¬ 
tations,  it  can  hardly  be  admitted,  as  had  too  willingly 
been  done,  that  they  were  merely  due  to  a  religious  war, 
and  one  must  not  view  the  strife  against  the  Jews  as  a 
struggle  of  polytheism  against  monotheism,  or  that 
of  the  Trinity  against  Jehovah.  The  polytheistic,  as 


9 


well  as  the  Christian  nations  combatted  not  the  doctrine 
of  one  sole  God,  but  the  Jew. 

Which  virtues  or  which  vices  have  earned  for  the 
Jew  this  universal  enmity?  Why  was  he  ill-treated  and 
hated  alike  and  in  turn  by  the  Alexandrians  and  the 
Romans,  by  the  Persians  and  the  Arabs,  by  the  Turks 
and  the  Christian  nations?  Because,  everywhere  up  to 
our  own  days  the  J ew  was  an  unsociable  being. 

Why  was  he  unsociable?  Because  he  was  exclusive, 
and  his  exclusiveness  was  both  political  and  religious,  or 
rather  he  held  fast  to  his  political  and  religious  cult,  to 
his  law. 

All  through  history  we  see  the  conquered  peoples  sub¬ 
mit  to  the  laws  of  the  conqueror,  though  they  may  guard 
their  own  faith  and  beliefs.  It  was  easy  for  them  to  do 
so,  for  with  them  a  line  was  drawn  between  their  relig¬ 
ious  teachings  which  had  come  from  the  gods,  and  their 
civil  laws  which  emanated  from  legislation  and  could 
be  modified  according  to  circumstances,  without  invit¬ 
ing  upon  the  reformers  the  theological  anathema  or  ex¬ 
ecration;  what  had  been  done  by  man  could  be  undone 
by  man.  Thus,  if  the  conquered  rose  up  against  the 
conquerors,  it  was  through  patriotism  alone,  and  they 
were  actuated  by  no  other  motive  but  the  desire  to  re¬ 
gain  their  land  and  their  liberty.  Aside  from  these 
national  uprisings,  they  seldom  took  exception  to  being 
subjected  to  the  general  laws;  if  they  protested,  it  was 
against  particular  enactments  which  placed  them  into 
a  position  of  inferiority  towards  the  dominant  people; 
in  the  history  of  the  Roman  conquests  we  see  the  con- 


10 


quered  bow  to  Kome  when  she  extended  to  them  the  laws 
which  governed  the  empire. 

Not  so  with  the  Jewish  people.  In  fact,  as  was  ob¬ 
served  by  Spinoza,1  “the  laws  revealed  by  God  to  Moses 
were  nothing  but  laws  for  the  special  government  of 
the  Hebrews.”  Moses,2  the  prophet  and  legislator,  as¬ 
signed  the  same  authority  for  his  judicial  and  govern¬ 
mental  enactments,  as  for  his  religious  precepts,  i.  e., 
revelation.  Not  only  did  Yahweh  say  to  the  Jews,  “Ye 
shall  believe  in  the  one  God  and  ye  shall  worship  no 
idols,”  he  also  prescribed  for  them  rules  of  hygiene  and 
morality;  not  only  did  he  designate  the  territory  where 
sacrifices  were  to  be  offered,  he  also  determined  the  man¬ 
ner  in  which  that  territory  was  to  be  governed.  Each 
of  the  given  laws,  whether  agrarian,  civil,  prophylactic, 
theological,  or  moral,  proceeded  from  the  same  author¬ 
ity,  so  that  all  these  codes  formed  a  whole,  a  rigorous 
system  of  which  naught  could  be  taken  away  for  fear  of 
sacrilege. 

In  reality,  the  Jew  lived  under  the  rule  of  a  lord, 
Yahweh,  who  could  neither  be  conquered,  nor  even  as¬ 
sailed,  and  he  knew  but  one  thing,  the  law,  i.  e the  col¬ 
lection  of  rules  and  decrees  which  it  had  once  pleased 
Yahweh  to  give  to  Moses, — a  law  divine  and  excellent, 
made  to  lead  its  followers  to  eternal  bliss  ;  a  perfect  law 
which  the  Jewish  people  alone  had  received. 

With  such  an  idea  of  his  Torah,  the  Jew  could  not 


2  Tractatus  theologico-politicus. 

*When  I  say  “Moses  assigned,”  it  is  not  to  maintain  that 
Moses  himself  elaborated  all  the  laws  which  pass  under  his  name, 
but  merely  because  he  is  credited  with  having  revised  them. 


11 


accept  the  laws  of  strange  nations  ;  nor  could  he  think 
of  submitting  to  them  ;  he  could  not  abandon  the  divine 
laws,  eternal,  good  and  just,  to  follow  human  laws, 
necessarily  imperfect  and  subject  to  decay.  If  only  he 
had  been  allowed  to  make  one  part  of  this  Torah;  to 
put  on  one  side  all  civil  ordinances,  on  the  other  all 
religious  decrees  !  But  had  they  not  all  a  sacred  char¬ 
acter,  and  did  not  the  welfare  of  the  Jewish  people  de¬ 
pend  upon  their  full  observance? 

These  civil  laws  which  attached  to  the  people,  not  to 
municipalities,  the  Jews  would  not  abandon  upon  set¬ 
tling  among  other  nations,  for  though  these  laws  no 
longer  had  any  justification  beyond  Jerusalem  and  the 
Kingdom  of  Israel,  they  were  none  the  less  religious 
obligations  binding  upon  all  the  Jews,  who,  by  an  an¬ 
cient  covenant  with  the  Deity,  had  undertaken  to  fulfill 
them. 

Thus,  wherever  colonies  were  founded  by  the  Jews,  to 
whatever  land  they  were  deported,  they  insisted,  not  only 
upon  permission  to  follow  their  religion,  but  also  upon 
exemption  from  the  customs  of  the  people  amidst  whom 
they  were  to  live,  and  the  privileges  to  govern  them¬ 
selves  by  their  own  laws. 

At  Borne,  at  Alexandria,  at  Antioch,  in  Cyrenaica 
they  were  allowed  full  freedom  in  the  matter.  They 
were  not  required  to  appear  in  court  on  Saturday  they 
were  even  permitted  to  have  their  own  special  tribunals, 
and  were  not  amenable  to  the  laws  of  the  empire; 
when  the  distribution  of  grains  occurred  on  a  Saturday 

1 God .  Theod.,  book  II,  title  VIII,  §2.  God.  Just.,  book  I,  title 
IX,  §2. 


12 


their  share  was  reserved  for  them  until  the  next  day;2 
they  could  be  decurions,  being  at  the  same  time  exempt 
from  all  practices  contrary  to  their  religion3;  they  en¬ 
joyed  complete  self-government,  as  in  Alexandria;  they 
had  their  own  chiefs,  their  own  senate,  their  ethnarch, 
and  were  not  subject  to  the  general  municipal  authori¬ 
ties. 

Everywhere  they  wanted  to  remain  Jews,  and  ever)r- 
where  they  were  granted  the  privilege  of  establishing  a 
State  within  the  State.  By  virtue  of  these  privileges 
and  exemptions,  and  immunity  from  taxes,  they  would 
soon  rise  above  the  general  condition  of  the  citizens  of 
the  municipalities  where  they  resided;  they  had  better 
opportunities  for  trade  and  accumulation  of  wealth, 
whereby  they  excited  jealousy  and  hatred. 

Thus,  Israel’s  attachment  to  its  law  was  one  of  the 
first  causes  of  its  unpopularity,  whether  because  it  de¬ 
rived  from  that  law  benefits  and  advantages  which  were 
apt  to  excite  envy,  or  because  it  prided  itself  upon  the 
excellence  of  its  Thorah  and  considered  itself  above  and 
beyond  other  peoples. 

Still  had  the  Israelites  adhered  to  pure  Mosaism,  they 
could,  doubtless,  at  some  time  in  their  history,  have  so 
modified  that  Mosaism  as  to  retain  none  but  the  religious 
and  metaphysical  precepts  ;  possibly,  if  they  had  no  other 
sacred  book  but  the  Bible  they  might  have  merged  in 
the  nascent  church,  which  enlisted  its  first  followers 
among  the  Sadducees,  the  Essenes,  and  the  Jewish  prose- 

2  Philo,  Legat.  ad  Cat. 

3  Dig.,  book  I,  title  III,  §3.  (Decisions  by  Septimius  Severus 
and  Caracalla.) 


13 


lytes.  One  thing  prevented  that  fusion  and  upheld  the 
existence  of  the  Hebrews  among  the  nations;  it  was  the 
growth  of  the  Talmud,  the  authority  and  rule  of  the 
doctors  who  taught  a  pretended  tradition.  The  policy 
of  the  doctors  to  which  we  shall  return  further  made 
of  the  Jews  sullen  beings,  unsociable  and  haughty,  of 
whom  Spinoza,  who  knew  them  well,  could  say:  “It  is 
not  at  all  surprising  that  after  being  scattered  for  so 
many  years  they  have  preserved  their  identity  without 
a  government  of  their  own,  for,  by  their  external  rites, 
contrary  to  those  of  other  nations,  as  well  as  by  the  sign 
of  circumcision,  they  have  isolated  themselves  from  all 
other  nations,  even  to  the  extent  of  drawing  upon  them¬ 
selves  the  hate  of  all  mankind.”* 1 

Man’s  aim  on  earth,  said  the  doctors,  is  the  knowledge 
and  observance  of  the  law,  and  one  cannot  thoroughly  ob¬ 
serve  it  without  denying  allegiance  to  all  but  the  true 
law.  The  J ew  who  followed  these  precepts  isolated  him¬ 
self  from  the  rest  of  mankind  ;  he  retrenched  himself  be¬ 
hind  the  fences  which  had  been  erected  around  the  Torah 
by  Ezra  and  the  first  scribes1,  later  by  the  Pharisees  and 
the  Talmudists,  the  successors  of  Ezra,  refomers  of 
primitive  Mosaism  and  enemies  or  the  prophets.  He 
isolated  himself,  not  merely  by  declining  to  submit  to 
the  customs  which  bound  together  the  inhabitants  of 
the  countries  where  he  settled,  but  also  by  shunning  all 
intercourse  with  the  inhabitants  themselves.  To  his  un¬ 
sociability  the  Jew  added  exclusiveness. 

With  the  law,  yet  without  Israel  to  put  it  into  practice, 


1  Spinoza,  Tractatus  theologico-politicus. 

1  The  Dibre  Sopherim. 


14 


the  world  could  not  exist,  God  would  turn  it  back  into 
nothing;  nor  will  the  world  know  happiness  until  it  be 
brought  under  the  universal  domination  of  that  law,  i.  e., 
under  the  domination  of  the  Jews.  Thus  the  Jewish 
people  is  chosen  by  God  as  the  trustee  of  His  will;  it 
is  the  only  people  with  whom  the  Deity  has  made  a 
covenant;  it  is  the  choice  of  the  Lord.  At  the  time  when 
the  serpent  tempted  Eve,  says  the  Talmud,  he  cor¬ 
rupted  her  with  his  venom.  Israel,  on  receiving  the 
revelation  from  Sinai,  delivered  itself  from  the  evil; 
the  rest  of  mankind  could  not  recover.  Thus,  if  they 
have  each  its  guardian  and  its  protecting  constellation, 
Israel  is  placed  under  the  very  eye  of  Jehovah;  it  is  the 
Eternal’s  favored  son  who  has  the  sole  right  to  his  love, 
to  his  good  will,  to  his  special  protection,  other  men  are 
placed  beneath  the  Hebrews;  it  is  by  mere  mercy  that 
they  are  entitled  to  divine  munificence,  since  the  souls 
of  the  J ews  alone  are  descended  from  the  first  man.  The 
wealth  which  has  come  to  the  nations,  in  truth  belongs 
to  Israel,  and  we  hear  Jesus  Himself  reply  to  the  Greek 
woman  :  "It  is  not  meet  to  take  the  children’s  bread  and 
so  cast  it  unto  the  dogs.”1  This  faith  in  their  pre¬ 
destination,  in  their  election,  developed  among  the  Jews 
an  immense  pride.  It  led  them  to  view  the  Gentiles  with 
contempt,  often  with  hate,  when  patriotic  considerations 
supervened  to  religious  feeling. 

When  Jewish  nationality  was  in  peril,  the  Pharisees, 
under  John  Hyrcanus,  declared  impure  the  soil  of 
strange  peoples,  as  well  as  all  intercourse  among  Jews 
and  Greeks.  Later,  the  Shamaites  advocated  at  a  synod 


1  Mark,  vii,  27. 


15 


complete  separation  of  the  Jews  from  the  heathens,  and 
drafted  a  set  of  injunctions,  called  The  Eighteen 
Things ,  which  ultimately  prevailed  over  the  opposi¬ 
tion  of  the  Hillelites.  As  a  result  Jewish  unsociability 
begins  to  engage  the  attention  of  the  councils  of  Anti- 
ochus  Sidetes  ;  exception  is  taken  to  “their  persistence  in 
shutting  themselves  up  amidst  their  own  kind  and  avoid¬ 
ing  all  intercourse  with  pagans,  and  to  their  eagerness  to 
make  that  intercourse  more  and  more  difficult,  if  not  im¬ 
possible.”1  And  the  high  priest  Merielaus  accuses  the 

*  _ _ 

law,  before  Antiochus  Epiphanes,  “of  teaching  hatred  of 
the  human  race,  of  prohibiting  to  sit  down  at  the  table  of 
strangers  and  to  show  good-will  towards  them.” 

If  these  prescriptions  had  lost  their  authority  when 
the  cause  which  had  produced  and,  in  a  way,  justified 
them,  had  disappeared,  the  evil  would  not  have  been 
great.  Yet  we  see  them  reappear  in  the  Talmud  and 
receive  a  new  sanction  from  the  authority  of  the  doctors. 
After  the  controversy  between  the  Sadducees  and  the 
Pharisees  had  terminated  in  the  victory  of  the  latter, 
these  injunctions  became  part  of  the  law,  they  were 
taught  with  the  law  and  helped  to  develop  and  exagger¬ 
ate  the  exclusiveness  of  the  Jews. 

Another  fear,  that  of  contamination,  separated 
the  Jews  from  the  world  and  made  their  iso¬ 
lation  still  more  rigorous.  The  Pharisees  held 
views  of  extreme  rigor  on  the  subject  of  contamina¬ 
tion;  with  them  the  injunctions  and  prescriptions  of  the 
Bible  were  insufficient  to  preserve  Man  from  sin.  As 
the  sacrificial  vases  were  contaminated  by  the  least  im- 


1  Derembourg,  Géographie  de  la  Palestine. 


16 


pure  contact,  they  came  to  regard  themselves  contam¬ 
inated  by  contact  with  strangers.  Of  this  fear  were  born 
innumerable  rules  affecting  every-day  life  :  rules  re¬ 
lating  to  clothing,  dwelling,  nourishment;  all  of  which 
were  promulgated  with  a  view  to  save  the  Israelites  from 
contamination  and  sacrilege;  all  these  rules  might  prop¬ 
erly  be  observed  in  an  independent  state  or  city,  but 
could  not  possibly  be  enforced  in  foreign  lands,  for  their 
strict  observance  would  require  the  Jews  to  flee  the  so¬ 
ciety  of  Gentiles,  and  thus  to  live  isolated,  hostile  to  their 
environment. 

The  Pharisees  and  the  Rabbinites  went  still  farther. 
Not  satisfied  with  preserving  the  body,  they  also  sought  to 
save  the  soul.  Experience  had  shown  them  that  Hel¬ 
lenic  and  Roman  importations  imperiled  what  they 
deemed  their  faith.  The  names  of  the  Hellenistic  high 
priests,  Jason,  Menelaus,  &c.,  reminded  the  Rabbinites 
of  the  times  when  the  genius  of  Greece,  winning  over 
one  portion  of  Israel,  came  very  near  conquering  it. 
They  knew  that  the  Sadducean  party,  friendly  to  the 
Greeks,  had  paved  the  way  for  Christianity,  as  much  as 
the  Alexandrians  and  all  those  who  maintained  that 
“none  but  the  legal  provisions,  clearly  enunciated  in  the 
Mosaic  law,  were  binding,  whereas  all  other  rules  grow¬ 
ing  from  local  traditions  or  subsequently  issued,  could 
lay  no  claim  to  rigorous  observance.1 

It  was  under  Greek  influence  that  the  books  and 
oracles  originated  which  prepared  the  minds  for  Messiah. 
The  Hellenistic  Jews,  Philo  and  Aristobulus,  the  pseudo- 
Phocylides  and  the  pseudo-Longinus,  authors  of  the 


1  Graetz,  Histoire  des  Juifs,  b.  II,  p.  469. 


17 


Sibylline  oracles  and  of  the  pseudo-Orphics,  all  these 
successors  of  the  prophets  who  continued  their  work,  led 
mankind  to  Christ.  And  it  may  be  said  that  true  Mo- 
saism,  purified  and  enlarged  by  Isaiah,  Jeremiah  and 
Ezekiel,  broadened  and  generalized  by  the  Judaeo-Hel- 
lenists,  would  have  brought  Israel  to  Christianity,  but 
for  Ezraism,  Pharisaism  and  Talmudism,  which  held  the 
mass  of  the  Jews  bound  to  strict  observances  and  nar¬ 
row  ritual  practices. 

To  guard  God’s  people,  to  keep  it  safe  from  evil  in¬ 
fluences,  the  doctors  exalted  their  law  above  all  things. 
They  declared  that  no  study  but  that  of  the  law  alone 
became  an  Israelite,  and  as  a  whole  life-time  was  hardly 
sufficient  to  learn  and  penetrate  all  the  subtleties  and  all 
the  casuistry  of  that  law,  they  prohibited  the  study  of 
profane  sciences  and  foreign  languages.  “Those  among 
us  who  learn  several  languages  are  not  held  in  esteem,” 
said  Josephus;1  contempt  alone  was  soon  thought  insuf¬ 
ficient,  they  were  excommunicated.  Nor  did  these  ex¬ 
pulsions  satisfy  the  Rabbinites.  Though  deprived  of 
Plato,  had  not  the  Jew  still  the  Bible,  could  he  not  listen 
to  the  voice  of  the  prophets?  As  the  book  could  not 
be  proscribed,  it  was  belittled  and  made  subordinate  to 
the  Talmud;  the  doctors  declared:  “The  law  is  water, 
the  Mishna  is  wine.”  And  the  reading  of  the  Bible  was 
considered  less  beneficial,  less  conducive  to  salvation 
than  the  reading  of  the  Mishna. 

However,  the  Rabbinites  could  not  kill  Jewish  curi¬ 
osity  with  one  blow;  it  required  centuries.  It  was  as 
late  as  the  fourteenth  century,  after  Ibn  Ezra,  Rabbi 


r 1  Ant.  Jud.,  xx,  9. 


/ 


—  18  — 

V 

Bêchai,  Maimonides,  Bedares,  Joseph  Caspi,  Levi  Ben 
Gerson,  Moses  of  Narbonne,  and  many  others,  were 
gone,  all  true  sons  of  Philo  and  the  Alexandrians,  who 
strove  to  verify  Judaism  by  foreign  philosophy;  after 
Asher  Ben  Yechiel  had  induced  the  assembly  of  the  rab¬ 
bis  at  Barcelona  to  excommunicate  those  who  would 
study  profane  sciences;  after  Babbi  Shalem,  of  Mont¬ 
pellier  had  complained  to  the  Dominicans  of  the  Moreh 
Nebuldiim ,  and  this  book,  the  highest  expression  of 
the  ideas  of  Maimonides,  had  been  burned  ; — it  was  only 
after  all  this  that  the  rabbis  ultimately  triumphed.* 1 

Their  end  was  attained.  They  had  cut  off  Israel 
from  the  community  of  nations;  they  had  made  of  it 
a  sullen  recluse,  a  rebel  against  all  laws,  foreign  to  all 
feeling  fraternity,  closed  to  all  beautiful,  noble  and  gen¬ 
erous  ideas  ;  they  had  made  of  it  a  small  and  miserable 
nation,  soured  by  isolation,  brutalized  by  a  narrow  edu¬ 
cation,  demoralized  and  corrupted  by  an  unjustifiable 
pride.1 

1  The  Jewish  thought  still  had  a  few  lights  in  the  fifteenth 
and  the  sixteenth  century.  But  those  among  the  Jews  who  pro¬ 
duced  anything  mostly  took  part  in  the  struggle  between 
philosophy  and  religion,  and  were  without  influence  upon  their 
co-religionists  ;  their  existence  is  therefore  no  denial  of  the  spirit 
inculcated  on  the  masses  by  the  rabbis.  Besides,  one  meets, 
throughout  that  period,  none  but  unimportant  commentators, 
physicians  and  translators  ;  there  appears  no  great  mind  among 
them.  One  must  go  as  far  as  Spinoza  to  find  a  Jew  truly  capa¬ 
ble  of  high  ideas  ;  it  is  well  known  how  the  Synagogue  treated 
Spinoza. 

1  “Insolentia  Judaeorum ,”  spoken  of  by  Agobard,  Amolon  and 
the  polemists  of  the  Middle  Ages  means  nothing  but  the  pride 
of  the  Jews,  who  consider  themselves  the  chosen  people.  This 
expression  has  not  the  sense  forced  into  it  by  modern  antisém¬ 
ites,  who,  it  may  be  noted,  are  poor  historians. 


19 


With  this  transformation  of  the  Jewish  spirit  and  the 
victory  of  sectarian  doctors,  coincides  the  beginning  of 
official  persecution.  Until  that  epoch  there  had  only 
been  outbursts  of  local  hatred,  but  no  systematic  vexa¬ 
tions.  With  the  triumph  of  the  Rabbinites,  the  ghettos 
come  into  being.  The  expulsions  and  massacres  com¬ 
mence.  The  Jews  want  to  live  apart, — a  line  is  drawn 
against  them.  They  detest  the  spirit  of  the  nations 
amidst  whom  they  live, — the  nations  chase  them.  They 
burn  the  Moreh, — their  Talmud  is  burned  and  they 
themselves  are  burned  with  it.1 

It  would  seem  that  no  further  agency  was  needed  to 
render  the  separation  of  the  Jews  from  the  rest  of  man¬ 
kind  complete  and  to  make  them  an  object  of  horror  and 
reprobation.  Still  another  cause  must  be  added  to  those 
just  mentioned:  the  indomitable  and  tenacious  patriot¬ 
ism  of  Israel. 

Certainty,  every  people  was  attached  to  the  land  of  its 
birth.  Conquered,  beaten  by  the  conquerors,  driven  into 
exile  or  forced  into  slavery,  they  remained  true  to  the 
sweet  memories  of  their  plundered  city  or  the  country 
they  had  lost.  Still  none  other  knew  the  patriotic  en¬ 
thusiasm  of  the  Jews.  The  Greek,  whose  city  was  de¬ 
stroyed,  could  elsewhere  build  anew  the  hearth  upon 
which  his  ancestors  bestowed  their  blessings  ;  the  Roman 

1  The  Roman  laws,  the  Visigothic  ordinances  and  those  of  the 
Councils  will  probably  be  cited  ;  yet  nearly  all  these  measures 
proceeded  principally  from  Jewish  proselytism.  It  was  not  until 
the  thirteenth  century  that  the  Jews  were  radically  and  officially 
separated  from  the  Christians,  by  ghettos,  by  symbols  of  infamy 
(  the  hat,  the  cape,  etc.  ) .  See  Ulysse  Robert,  Les  Signes  d'infa¬ 
mie  au  moijcvage.  (Paris,  1891.) 


20 


who  went  into  exile  took  along  with  him  his  penates; 
Athens  or  Rome  had  nothing  of  the  mystic  fatherland 
like  Jerusalem. 

Jerusalem  was  the  guardian  of  the  Tabernacle  which 
received  the  divine  word;  it  was  the  city  of  the  only 
Temple,  the  only  place  in  the  world  where  God  could 
efficiently  be  worshipped  and  sacrifices  offered  to  Him. 
It  was  only  much  later,  at  a  very  late  day,  that  prayer 
houses  were  erected  in  other  towns  of  Juda,  or  Greece, 
or  Italy;  still  in  those  houses  they  confined  themselves 
to  the  reading  of  the  law  and  theological  discussion; 
the  pomp  of  Jehovah  was  known  nowhere  but  at  Jeru¬ 
salem,  the  chosen  sanctuary.  When  a  temple  was  built 
at  Alexandria,  it  was  considered  heretical;  indeed,  the 
ceremonies  which  were  celebrated  there  had  no  sense, 
for  they  ought  not  to  be  performed  anywhere  but  in  a 
true  temple;  so  St.  Chrysostome,  after  the  dispersion 
of  the  Jews  and  the  destruction  of  their  city,  was  justi¬ 
fied  in  saying  :  “The  J ews  offer  sacrifices  in  all  parts  of 
the  earth  except  there  where  the  sacrifice  is  permitted 
and  valid,  i.  e.,  at  Jerusalem; ” 

With  the  Hebrews  the  air  of  Palestine  is  the  best;  it 
is  sufficient  to  make  a  man  learned  its  holiness  is  such 
that  whoever  resides  beyond  its  limits  is  as  if  he  had  no 
God.1 2  Therefore  one  must  not  live  elsewhere,  and  the  - 
Talmud  threatens  with  excommunication  those  who 
would  eat  the  passover  lamb  in  a  foreign  land. 

All  Jews  of  the  period  of  dispersion  sent  to  Jerusalem 
the  didrachm  tax  for  the  maintenance  of  the  temple; 


1  Talmud,  Bava  BatJira,  158,  2. 

2  Talmud,  Kethuvoth. 


21 


once  in  their  lives  they  came  to  the  holy  city,  as  later 
the  Mohammedans  came  to  Mecca  ;  after  their  death  they 
were  carried  to  Palestine,  and  numerous  craft  anchored 
at  the  coast,  loaded  with  small  coffins  which  were  thence 
forwarded  on  camehs  back. 

It  was  because  in  Jerusalem  only,  in  the  land  given 
by  God  to  their  ancestors,  their  bodies  would  be  resur¬ 
rected.  There  those  who  had  believed  in  Yahweh,  who 
had  observed  his  law  and  obeyed  his  word,  would  awake 
at  the  sound  of  the  last  trumpet  and  appear  before  their 
Lord.  Nowhere  but  there  could  they  rise  at  the  ap¬ 
pointed  hour;  every  other  land  but  that  washed  by  the 
yellow  Jordan  was  a  vile  land,  fouled  by  idolatry,  de¬ 
prived  of  God. 

When  the  fatherland  was  dead,  when  adversity  was 
sweeping  Israel  all  over  the  world,  after  the  Temple 
had  perished  in  flames,  and  when  the  heathens  occupied 
the  holiest  ground,  mourning  over  bygone  days  became 
everlasting  in  the  soul  of  the  Jew.  It  was  over;  they 
could  no  longer  hope  to  see  on  the  day  of  mercy  the 
black  buck  carry  away  their  sins  into  the  desert,  neither 
could  they  see  the  lamb  killed  for  the  passover  night, 
or  bring  their  offerings  to  the  altar;  and,  deprived  of 
Jerusalem  during  life,  they  would  not  be  brought  there 
after  death. 

God  ought  not  to  abandon  his  children,  reasoned  the 
pious;  and  naive  legends  came  to  comfort  the  exiles. 
Near  the  tombs  of  the  Jews  who  die  in  exile,  they  said, 
Jehovah  opens  long  caverns  through  which  the  corpses 
roll  as  far  as  Palestine,  whereas  the  pagan  who  dies 
there,  near  the  consecrated  hills,  is  removed  from  the 


22 


chosen  land,  for  he  is  unworthy  o±  remaining  there 
where  the  resurrection  will  take  place. 

Still  that  did  not  satisfy  them.  They  did  not  resign 
themselves  to  visiting  Jerusalem  merely  as  pitiable  pil¬ 
grims,  weeping  before  the  ruined  walls,  many  of  them  so 
maddened  by  grief  as  to  let  themselves  be  trampled  upon 
by  horses’  hoofs,  embracing  the  ground  while  moaning; 
they  could  not  believe  that  God,  that  the  blessed  city 
had  abandoned  them;  with  Judah  Levita  they  ex¬ 
claimed:  “Zion,  hast  thou  forgotten  thy  unfortunate 
children  who  groan  in  slavery?” 

They  expected  that  their  Lord  would  by  his  mighty 
right  hand  raise  the  fallen  walls;  they  hoped  that  a 
prophet,  a  chosen  one,  would  bring  them  back  to  the 
promised  land;  and  how  many  times,  in  the  course  of 
ages,  have  they  left  their  homes,  their  fortunes, — they 
who  are  reproached  of  being  too  much  attached  to 
worldly  goods, — in  order  to  follow  a  false  Messiah  who 
undertook  to  lead  them  and  promised  them  the  return 
so  much  longed  for  !  Thousands  were  attracted  by  Sere- 
nus,  Moses  of  Crete,  Alroi,  and  massacred  in  the  ex¬ 
pectation  of  the  happy  day. 

With  the  Talmudists  these  sentiments  of  popular  en¬ 
thusiasm,  this  mystic  heroism  underwent  a  transforma¬ 
tion.  The  doctors  taught  the  restoration  of  the  Jewish 
empire;  in  order  that  Jerusalem  might  be  born  anew 
from  its  ruins,  they  wanted  to  preserve  the  people  of 
Israel  pure,  to  prevent  them  from  mixing  with  other 
people,  to  inculcate  on  them  the  idea  that  they  were 
everywhere  in  exile,  amidst  enemies  that  held  them  cap¬ 
tive.  They  said  to  their  disciples:  “Do  not  cultivate 


strange  lands,  soon  you  will  cultivate  your  own;  do  not 
attach  yourself  to  any  land,  for  thus  will  you  be  unfaith¬ 
ful  to  the  memory  of  your  native  land  ;  do  not  submit  to 
any  king,  for  you  have  no  master  but  the  Lord  of  the 
Holy  Land,  Jehovah;  do  not  scatter  amongst  the  na¬ 
tions,  you  will  forfeit  your  salvation  and  you  will  not  see 
the  light  of  the  day  of  resurrection  ;  remain  such  as  you 
left  your  house;  the  hour  will  come  and  you  will  see 
again  the  hills  of  your  ancestors,  and  those  hills  will  then 
be  the  centre  of  the  world,  which  will  be  subject  to  your 
power.” 

Thus  all  those  complex  sentiments  which  had  in  olden 
days  served  to  build  up  the  hegemony  of  Israel,  to  main¬ 
tain  its  character  as  a  nation,  to  develop  a  high  and 
powerful  originality,  all  those  virtues  and  vices  which 
gave  it  the  spirit  and  countenance  necessary  to  pre¬ 
serve  a  nation;  which  enabled  it  to  attain  greatness  and 
later  to  defend  its  independence  with  desperate  valor 
worthy  of  admiration  ;  all  that,  after  the  J ews  had  ceased 
to  be  a  State,  combined  to  shut  them  up  in  the  most 
complete,  the  most  absolute  isolation. 

This  isolation  has  been  their  strength,  in  the  opinion 
of  some  apologists.  If  they  mean  to  say  that  owing  to  it 
the  Jews  have  survived,  so  much  is  true;  if  the  condi¬ 
tions  are  considered,  however,  under  which  the  Jews 
have  preserved  their  identity  as  a  people,  it  is  obvious 
that  this  isolation  has  been  their  weakness,  and  that 
they  have  survived  up  to  modern  times,  as  a  race  of 
pariahs,  persecuted,  often  martyred.  Moreover,  it  is 
not  only  to  their  seclusion  that  they  owe  this  surprising 
persistence.  Their  extraordinary  solidarity,  due  to  their 


misfortunes,  and  mutual  support  count  for  very  much; 
and  even  in  our  day,  when  they  take  part  in  public  life 
in  some  countries,  having  abandoned  their  sectarian 
dogmas,  this  very  solidarity  prevents  them  from  dissolv¬ 
ing  and  disappearing  as  a  people,  by  conferring  upon 
them  certain  benefits  to  which  they  are  by  no  means 
indifferent. 

This  solicitude  for  worldly  goods,  which  is  a  marked 
feature  of  the  Hebrew  character,  has  not  been  without 
effect  upon  the  conduct  of  the  Jews,  especially  since  they 
left  Palestine;  by  directing  them  along  certain  avenues, 
to  the  exclusion  of  all  others,  this  feature  of  their  char¬ 
acter  has  drawn  upon  them  the  most  violent  animosities. 
The  soul  of  the  Jew  is  twofold:  it  is  both  mystic  and 
positive.  His  mysticism  has  come  down  from  the  theo- 
phanies  of  the  desert  to  the  metaphysical  dreaming  of  the 
kabbala;  his  positivism,  or  rather  his  rationalism,  mani¬ 
fests  itself  in  the  sentences  of  the  Ecclesiastes  as  well  as 
the  legislative  enactments  of  the  rabbis  and  the  dog¬ 
matic  controversies  of  the  theologians.  Still  if  mysticism 
leads  to  a  Philo  or  Spinoza,  rationalism  leads  to  the 
usurer,  the  weigher  of  gold  ;  it  creates  the  greedy  trader. 
It  is  true  that  at  times  these  two  states  of  the  mind 
are  found  in  just  opposition,  and  the  Israelite,  as  it 
occurred  in  the  middle  ages,  can  split  his  life  into  two 
parts:  one  devoted  to  meditation  on  the  Absolute,  the 
other  to  business. 

Of  the  Jewish  love  for  gold,  there  can  be  no  question 
here.  Though  it  may  have  grown  so  abnormal  with  this 
race  as  to  have  become  well-nigh  the  only  motive  of  their 
actions,  though  it  may  have  engendered  a  violent  and 


25 


exasperated  antisemitism,  yet  it  cannot  be  classed  among 
the  general  causes  of  antisemitism.  It  was,  on  the  con¬ 
trary,  the  effect  of  those  very  causes,  and  we  shall  see 
that  it  is  partly  the  exclusiveness,  the  persistent  patriot¬ 
ism  and  pride  of  Israel,  that  has  driven  it  to  become 
the  hated  usurer  of  the  whole  world. 

In  fact,  all  the  causes  we  have  just  enumerated,  if  they 
be  general,  are  not  the  only  ones.  I  have  called  them 
general,  because  they  depend  upon  one  constant  element  : 
the  Jew.  Still  the  Jew  is  only  one  of  the  factors  of  anti¬ 
semitism;  he  provokes  it  by  his  presence,  but  he  is  not 
the  only  one  that  determines  it.  The  nations  among 
whom  the  Israelites  have  lived,  their  manners,  their  cus¬ 
toms,  their  religion,  the  philosophy  even  of  the  nations 
in  whose  midst  Israel  has  developed,  determine  the  par¬ 
ticular  character  of  antisemitism,  which  changes  with 
time  and  place. 

We  shall  trace  these  modifications  and  variations  of 
antisemitism  through  the  course  of  ages  down  to  our 
epoch;  and  we  shall  examine  whether,  in  some  countries 
at  least,  the  general  causes  I  have  attempted  to  deduce 
are  still  operating,  or  whether  the  reasons  for  modern 
antisemitism  must  not  be  sought  elsewhere. 


26 


CHAPTER  II, 

ANTI-JUDAISM  IN  ANTIQUITY. 

The  Hykos. — Haman. — Antisemitism  in  Ancient  Soci¬ 
ety. — In  Egypt,  Manetho,  Chaeremon,  Lysimachns. 
— Antisemitism  at  Alexandria. — The  Stoics:  Posi¬ 
donius,  Apollonius  Molo. — Apion,  Josephus  and 
Philo. — “Treatise  Against  the  Jews,”  the  “Contra 
Apionem,”  and  the  “Legation  to  Caius.” — The 
Jews  at  Rome. — Roman  Antisemitism. — Cicero, 
Disciple  of  Apion,  and  Pro  Flacco. — Persius,  Ovid 
and  Petronius. — Pliny,  Suetonius  and  Juvenal. — 
Seneca  and  the  Stoics. — Government  Measures. — 
Antisemitism  at  Antioch  and  in  Ionia. — Antisemit¬ 
ism  and  Antichristianity. 

Modern  antisémites  who  are  in  quest  of  sires  for 
themselves,  unhesitatingly  trace  the  first  demonstrations 
against  the  J ews  back  to  the  days  of  ancient  Egypt.  For 
that  purpose  they  are  particularly  pleased  to  refer  to 
Genesis,  xliii,  32,  where  it  is  said  :  “The  Egyptians 
might  not  eat  bread  with  the  Hebrews  ;  for  that  it  is  an 
abomination  unto  the  Egyptians.”  They  also  rely  upon  a 
few  verses  of  the  Exodus,  among  them  the  following: 
“Behold,  the  people  of  the  children  of  Israel  are  more 
and  mightier  than  we;  come  on,  let  us  deal  wisely  with 
them,  lest  they  multiply.”  (Exodus,  i,  9,  10.) 

It  is  certain  that  the  sons  of  Jacob  who  came  to  the 
land  of  Goshen  under  the  Shepherd  Pharaoh  Aphobis, 


27 


were  treated  by  the  Egyptians  with  the  same  contempt 
as  their  brothers,  the  Hyksos,  referred  to  in  hiero¬ 
glyphic  texts  as  lepers ,  called  also  “plague”  and  “pest” 
in  some  inscriptions.1  They  arrived  at  that  very  epoch 
when  a  very  strong  national  sentiment  manifested  itself 
against  the  Asiatic  invaders,  hated  for  their  cruelty  ; 
this  sentiment  soon  led  to  the  war  of  independence, 
which  resulted  in  the  final  victory  of  Ahmos  I.,  and  the 
enslavement  of  the  Hebrews.  However,  unless  one  is 
a  violent  anti- Jew,  it  is  impossible  to  perceive  in  those 
remote  disturbances  anything  beyond  a  mere  incident 
in  a  struggle  between  conquerors  and  conquered. 

There  is  no  antisemitism  until  the  Jews,  having 
abandoned  their  native  land,  settle  as  immigrants  in 
foreign  countries  and  come  into  contact  with  natives  or 
older  settlers,  whose  customs,  race  and  religion  are  dif¬ 
ferent  from  those  of  the  Hebrews. 

Accordingly,  the  history  of  Haman  and  Mordecai 
may  be  taken  as  the  beginning  of  antisemitism,  and  the 
antisémites  have  not  failed  so  to  do.  This  view  is, 
perhaps,  more  correct.  Though  the  historical  reality 
of  the  book  of  Esther  can  scarcely  be  relied  upon,  still 
it  is  worthy  of  note  that  its  author  puts  into  the  mouth 
of  Haman  some  of  the  complaints,  which,  at  a  later 
period,  are  uttered  by  Tacitus  and  other  Latin  writers. 
“And  Haman  said  unto  the  king,  Ahasuerus  :  there  is  a 
certain  people  scattered  abroad  and  dispersed  among  the 
people  in  all  the  provinces  of  thy  kingdom;  and  their 


1  Inscription  of  Aalimes,  chief  of  the  mariners,  cited  in  Le- 
drain’s  Histoire  du  peuple  d'Israël ,  I,  p.  53. 


28 


laws  are  diverse  from  all  people;  neither  keep  they  the 
king’s  laws.”  (Esther,  iii,  8.) 

The  pamphleteers  of  the  middle  ages,  of  the  sixteenth 
and  seventeenth  centuries,  and  of  our  own  time,  say 
nothing  else  ;  and  if  the  history  of  Hainan  is  apocryphal, 
which  is  highly  probable,  still  it  cannot  be  denied  that 
the  author  of  the  Book  of  Esther  has  very  ably  brought 
out  some  of  the  causes,  which  for  many  centuries  ex¬ 
posed  the  Jews  to  the  hatred  of  nations. 

Yet  we  must  go  to  the  period  of  Jewish  expansion 
abroad,  to  be  enabled  to  observe  with  certainty  that  hos¬ 
tility  against  them,  which  by  a  peculiar  misuse  of  terms 
has  in  our  days  been  called  antisemitism. 

Some  traditions  refer  the  entrance  of  the  Jews  into 
the  ancient  world  to  the  epoch  of  the  first  captivity. 
While  Yabu-Ivudur-Ussur  led  away  to  Babylonia 
a  portion  of  the  Jewish  people,  many  of  the  Israelites,  to 
escape  from  the  conqueror,  fled  to  Egypt,  to  Tripoli,  and 
reached  the  Greek  colonies.  Tradition  brings  back  to 
the  same  period  the  arrival  of  the  Jews  in  China  and 
India. 

Historically,  however,  the  wanderings  of  the  Jews 
across  the  globe  commence  in  the  fourth  century  before 
our  era.  About  331  B.  C.  Alexander  transported  some 
Jews  to  Alexandria,  Ptolemy  sent  some  of  them  to 
Cyrenaica,  and  about  the  same  time  Seleucus  led  some 
of  them  to  Antioch.  When  Jesus  was  born  Jewish  col¬ 
onies  flourished  everywhere,  and  it  was  among  them  that 
Christianity  recruited  its  first  adherents.  There  were 
Jews  in  Egypt,  in  Phoenicia,  in  Syria,  in  Coele-Syria, 
in  Pamphylia,  in  Cilicia,  and  as  far  as  Bithynia.  In 


29 


Europe  they  had  settled  in  Thessalia,  Boeotia,  Mace¬ 
donia,  Attica  and  Peloponnesus.  They  were  to  be 
found  in  the  Great  Isles,  on  Euboea,  on  Crete,  on  Cyprus, 
and  at  Rome.  “It  is  not  easy  to  find  a  place  on  earth,” 
says  Strabo,  “which  has  not  received  that  race.” 

Why  were  the  Jews  hated  in  all  those  countries,  in  all 
those  cities?  Because  they  never  entered  any  city  as 
citizens,  but  always  as  a  privileged  class.  Though  hav¬ 
ing  left  Palestine,  they  wanted  above  all  to  remain  Jews, 
and  their  native  country  was  still  Jerusalem,  i.  e.,  the 
only  city  where  God  might  be  worshipped  and  sacrifices 
offered  in  His  Temple.  They  formed  everywhere  repub¬ 
lics,  as  it  were,  united  with  Judea  and  Jerusalem,  and 
from  every  place  they  remitted  monies  to  the  high  priest 
in  payment  of  a  special  tax  for  the  maintenance  of  the 
Temple — the  didrachm. 

Moreover,  they  separated  themselves  from  other  in¬ 
habitants  by  their  rites  and  their  customs;  they  consid¬ 
ered  the  soil  of  foreign  nations  impure  and  sought  to 
constitute  themselves  in  every  city  into  a  sort  of  a 
sacred  territory.  They  lived  apart,  in  special  quarters, 
secluded  among  themselves,  isolated,  governing  them¬ 
selves  by  virtue  of  privileges  which  were  jealously 
guarded  by  them,  and  excited  the  envy  of  their  neigh¬ 
bors.  They  intermarried  amongst  themselves  and  enter¬ 
tained  no  strangers,  for  fear  of  pollution.  The  mystery 
with  which  they  surrounded  themselves  excited  curiosity 
as  well  as  aversion.  Their  rites  appeared  strange  and 
gave  occasion  for  ridicule;  being  unknown,  they  were 
misrepresented  and  slandered. 

At  Alexandria  they  were  quite  numerous.  According 


30 


to  Philo,1  Alexandria  was  divided  into  five  wards.  Two 
were  inhabited  by  the  Jews.  The  privileges  accorded  to 
them  by  Caesar  were  engraved  on  a  column  and  guarded 
by  them  as  a  precious  treasure.  They  had  their  own 
Senate  with  exclusive  jurisdiction  in  Jewish  affairs,  and 
they  were  judged  by  an  ethnarch.  They  were  ship-own¬ 
ers,  traders,  farmers,  most  of  them  wealthy  ;  the  sumptu¬ 
ousness  of  their  monuments  and  synagogues  bore  witness 
to  it.  The  Ptolemies  made  them  farmers  of  the  reve¬ 
nues;  this  was  one  of  the  causes  of  popular  hatred 
against  them.  Besides,  they  had  a  monopoly  of  naviga¬ 
tion  on  the  Nile,  of  the  grain  trade  and  of  provisioning 
Alexandria,  and  they  extended  their  trade  to  all  the  prov¬ 
inces  along  the  Mediterranean  coast.  They  accumulated 
great  fortunes  ;  this  gave  rise  to  the  invidia  auri  J udaici. 
The  growing  resentment  against  these  foreign  cornerers, 
constituting  a  nation  within  a  nation,  led  to  popular  dis¬ 
turbances  ;  the  J ews  were  frequently  assaulted,  and  Ger- 
manicu,  among  others,  had  great  trouble  protecting 
them. 

The  Egyptians  took  revenge  upon  them  by  deriding 
their  religious  customs,  their  abhorrence  of  pork.  They 
once  paraded  in  the  city  a  fool,  Car  abas  by  name, 
adorned  with  a  papyrus  diadem,  decked  in  a  royal 
gown,  and  they  saluted  him  as  king  of  the  Jews.  Under 
Philadelphus,  one  of  the  first  Ptolemies,  Manetho,  the 
high-priest  of  the  Temple  at  Heliopolis,  lent  his  au¬ 
thority  to  the  popular  hatred;  he  considered  the  Jews 
descendants  of  the  Hyksos  usurpers,  and  said  that  that 
leprous  tribe  had  been  expelled  for  sacrilege  and  im- 


1  In  Flaccum. 


31 


piousness.  Those  fahles  were  repeated  by  Chæremon 
and  Lysimachus.  It  was  not  only  popular  animosity, 
however  that  persecuted  the  Jews;  they  had  also  against 
them  the  Stoics  and  the  Sophists.  The  Jews,  by  their 
proselytism,  interfered  with  the  Stoics;  there  was  a 
rivalry  for  influence  between  them,  and,  notwithstand¬ 
ing  their  common  belief  in  divine  unity,  there  was 
opposition  between  them.  The  Stoics  charged  the  Jews 
with  irreligiousness,  judging  by  the  sayings  of  Posidon¬ 
ius  and  Apollonius  Molo;  they  had  a  very  scant  knowl¬ 
edge  of  the  J ewish  religion.  The  J ews,  they  said,  refuse 
to  worship  the  gods;  they  do  not  consent  to  bow  even 
before  the  divinity  of  the  emperor.  They  have  in  their 
sanctuary  the  head  of  an  ass  and  render  homage  to  it; 
they  are  cannibals;  every  year  they  fatten  a  man  and 
sacrifice  him  in  a  grove,  after  which  they  divide  among 
themselves  his  flesh  and  swear  on  it  to  hate  strangers. 
“The  Jews,  says  Apollonius  Molo,  are  enemies  of  all 
mankind;  they  have  invented  nothing  useful,  and  they 
are  brutal.”  To  this  Posidonius  adds  :  “They  are  the 
worst  of  all  men.” 

Not  less  than  the  Stoics  did  the  Sophists  detest  the 
J  ews.  But  the  causes  of  their  hatred  were  not  religious, 
but,  I  should  say,  rather  literary.  From  Ptolemy  Phi- 
ladelphus,  until  the  middle  of  the  third  century,  the 
Alexandrian  Jews,  with  the  intent  of  sustaining  and 
strengthening  their  propaganda,  gave  themselves  to  forg¬ 
ing  all  texts  which  were  capable  of  lending  support  to 
their  cause.  The  verses  of  Aeschylus,  of  Sophocles,  of 
Euripides,  the  pretended  oracles  of  Orpheus,  preserved  in 
Aristobulus  and  the  Stromata  of  Clement  of  Alexandria 


32 


were  thus  made  to  glorify  the  one  God  and  the  Sabbath. 
Historians  were  falsified  or  credited  with  the  authorship 
of  books  they  had  never  written.  It  is  thus  that  a  His¬ 
tory  of  the  Jews  was  published  under  the  name  of  Hec- 
ataeus  of  Abdera.  The  most  important  of  these  inven¬ 
tions  was  the  Sibylline  oracles,  a  fabrication  of  the 
Alexandrian  Jews,  which  prophesied  the  future  advent 
of  the  reign  of  the  one  God.  They  found  imitators, 
however,  for  since  the  Sibyl  had  begun  to  speak,  in  the 
second  century  before  Christ,  the  first  Christians  also 
made  her  speak.  The  Jews  would  appropriate  to  them¬ 
selves  even  the  Greek  literature  and  philosophy.  In  a 
commentary  on  the  Pentateuch,  which  has  been  pre¬ 
served  for  us  by  Eusebius,1  Aristobulus  attempted  to 
show  that  Plato  and  Aristotle  had  found  their  metaphys¬ 
ical  and  ethical  ideas  in  an  old  Greek  translation  of  the 
Pentateuch.  The  Greeks  were  greatly  incensed  at  such 
treatment  of  their  literature  and  philosophy,  and  out  of 
revenge  they  circulated  the  slanderous  stories  of  Mane- 
tho,  adapting  them  to  those  of  the  Bible,  to  the  great 
fury  of  the  Jews;  thus  the  confusion  of  languages  was 
identified  with  the  myth  of  Zeus  robbing  the  animals  of 
their  common  language.  The  Sophists,  wounded  by  the 
conduct  of  the  Jews,  would  speak  against  them  in  their 
teaching.  One  among  them,  Apion,  wrote  a  Treat¬ 
ise  against  the  Jews.  This  Apion  was  a  peculiar  indi¬ 
vidual,  a  liar  and  babbler,  to  a  degree  uncommon  even 
among  rhetors,  and  full  of  vanity,  which  earned  him 
from  Tiberius  the  nickname  of  “Cymbalum  mundi.” 
His  stories  were  famous;  he  claimed  to  have  called  out, 


1  Preparatio  Evangelica. 


by  means  of  magic  herbs,  the  shade  of  Homer,  says 
Pliny  : 

Apion  repeated  in  his  Treatise  against  the 
J ews  the  stories  of  Manetho,  which  had  been  previously 
restated  by  Chaeremon  and  Lysimachus,  and  •  supple¬ 
mented  them  by  quoting  from  Posidonius  and  Apollo¬ 
nius  Molo.  According  to  him,  Moses  was  “nothing  but 
a  seducer  and  wizard,”  and  his  laws  contained  “nothing 
but  what  is  bad  and  dangerous.”1 

As  to  the  Sabbath,  the  name  was  derived,  he  said,  from 
a  disease,  a  sort  of  an  ulcer,  with  which  the  Jews  were 
afflicted,  and  which  the  Egyptians  called  sabbatosim , 
i.  e.,  disease  of  the  groins. 

Philo  and  Josephus  undertook  the  defense  of  the  Jews 
and  fought  the  Sophists  and  Apion.  In  Contra  Ap- 
ionem ,  J osephus  is  very  severe  on  his  adversary. 
“Apion,”  says  he,  “is  as  stupid  as  an  ass  and  as  impru¬ 
dent  as  a  dog,  which  is  one  of  the  gods  of  his  nation.” 
Philo,  on  the  other  hand,  prefers  to  attack  the  Sophists 
in  general,  and  if  he  mentions  Apion  at  all,  in  his  Lega - 
tio  ad  Caium ,  it  is  merely  because  Apion  was  sent  to 
Home  to  prefer  charges  against  the  Jews  before  Caligula. 

In  his  Treatise  on  Agriculture  he  draws  a  very  black 
picture  of  the  Sophists,  and  insinuates  that  Moses  has 
compared  them  to  hogs.  Nevertheless,  in  his  other  writ¬ 
ings,  he  advises  his  co-religionists  not  to  irritate  them,  so 
as  to  avoid  all  provocation  to  disturbances,  but  to  await 
patiently  their  chastisement,  which  will  come  on  the  day 
the  Jewish  Empire,  the  empire  of  salvation,  will  be  es¬ 
tablished  on  earth. 


2  Josephus,  Contra  Apionem,  book  II,  ch.  6. 


34 


Philo’s  injunctions  were  not  heeded;  the  exasperation 
on  both  sides  often  led  to  violent  riots  and  massacres 
of  Jews;  the  latter,  however,  valiantly  defended  them¬ 
selves.1 

At  Eome  the  J ews  had  a  powerful  and  wealthy  colony 
as  early  as  the  first  year  of  the  Christian  era.  If  Vale¬ 
rius  Maximus  may  be  trusted,  they  first  came  to  the  city 
about  139  B.  C.,  during  the  consulate  of  Popilius  Loenus 
and  Cajus  Calpwinius.2 

Certain  it  is  that,  in  160  B.  C.,  an  embassy  from  Judas 
Maccabee  arrived  in  Rome  to  negotiate  an  alliance  with 
the  Republic  against  the  Syrians;  other  embassies  fol¬ 
lowed,  in  143  and  in  139.1 

The  settlement  of  the  Jews  at  Rome  probably  dates 
from  that  time.  Under  Pompey  they  came  in  num- 
tant  factor  in  politics.  Caesar  availed  himself  of  their 
support  during  the  civil  wars  and  lavished  favors  upon 
bers,  and  as  early  as  58  B.  C.,  they  had  quite  a  settle¬ 
ment.  Turbulent  and  formidable,  they  were  an  impor- 
them;  he  even  granted  them  exemption  from  military 
service.  Under  Augustus  the  distribution  of  free  bread 
was  postponed  for  them  whenever  it  fell  due  on  Saturday. 
The  Emperor  gave  them  permission  to  collect  the  did¬ 
rachm  which  was  sent  to  Palestine,  and  he  ordered  the 
sacrifice  of  one  or  two  lambs  to  be  offered  in  his  behalf  at 
the  Temple  of  Jerusalem  for  all  time  to  come.  When 


1  Philo,  In  Flaccum. 

2  Valerius  Maximus,  I.  3,  2. 

1  Maccab.  viii.,  11,  17-32;  xii,  1-3;  xiv,  16-19,  24. — Josephus, 
Antiqu.  Jud..  xii,  110;  xiii,  5,  7,  9  Mai  script,  vet.,  Ill,  part 
3,  p.  998, 


35 


Tiberius  became  emperor,  there  were  at  Rome  20,000 
Jews,  who  were  organized  in  colleges  and  sodalitates. 

Except  the  Jews  of  prominent  families,  like  the  Her- 
ods  and  the  Agrippas,  who  mixed  in  public  life,  the  J ew- 
ish  masses  lived  in  retirement.  The  majority  resided  in 
the  dirtiest  and  busiest  quarter  of  the  city,  the  Transti- 
berinus.  They  were  to  be  seen  near  the  Via  Portuensis, 
the  Emporium  and  the  great  Circus,  in  the  Campus 
Martius,  and  in  Suburra,  beyond  the  Capenian  Gate,  on 
the  banks  of  the  Egerian  Creek,  and  near  the  sacred 
grove.  They  were  engaged  in  retail  trade  and  the  sale 
of  second-hand  goods;  those  at  the  Capenian  Gate  were 
fortune  tellers.  The  Jew  of  the  Ghetto  is  already  there. 

At  Rome  the  same  causes  were  at  work  as  at  Alexan¬ 
dria.  There,  also,  the  excessive  privileges  of  the  Jews, 
the  wealth  of  some  of  them,  as  well  as  their  unheard-of 
luxury  and  ostentation,  excited  popular  hatred.  This 
resentment  was  aggravated  by  deeper  and  more  impor¬ 
tant  reasons  of  a  religious  character;  it  may  even  be 
maintained,  strange  as  it  may  seem,  that  the  motive  of 
Roman  anti- J udaism  was  religious. 

The  Roman  religion  resembled  in  nothing  the  admir¬ 
able  and  profoundly  symbolic  polytheism  of  the  Greeks. 
It  was  ritual  rather  than  mythical;  it  consisted  of  cus¬ 
toms  closely  connected  with  the  doings  of  everyday  life, 
as  well  as  with  all  sorts  of  public  acts.  Rome  was  one 
body  with  its  gods;  its  greatness  was  bound,  as  it  were, 
with  the  rigorous  observance  of  the  practices  of  their 
national  religion;  its  glory  depended  upon  the  piety  of 
its  citizens,  and  it  seems  that  the  Roman  must  have  had, 
like  the  Jew,  that  notion  of  a  covenant  between  the  dei- 


36 


ties  and  himself,  which  was  to  be  scrupulously  lived  up 
to  by  both  parties.  Somehow  or  other,  the  Roman  was 
always  in  the  presence  of  his  gods;  he  left  his  hearth, 
where  they  abode,  only  to  find  them  again  in  the  Forum, 
on  the  public  highways,  in  the  Senate,  even  in  the  fields, 
where  they  kept  watch  over  the  power  of  Rome.  At  all 
times  and  on  all  occasions  sacrifices  were  offered;  the 
warriors  and  the  diplomats  were  guided  by  auguries,  and 
all  authority,  civil  as  well  as  military,  partook  of  the 
priesthood,  for  the  officer  could  not  perform  his  duties 
unless  he  knew  the  rites  and  observances  of  the  cult. 

It  was  this  cult  that  for  centuries  sustained  the  Re¬ 
public,  and  its  commandments  were  faithfully  obeyed; 
when  they  were  changed,  when  the  traditions  became 
adulterated,  when  the  rules  were  violated,  Rome  saw  its 
glory  fade,  and  its  agony  commenced. 

Thus  the  Roman  religion  preserved  itself  for  a  long 
time  without  change.  True,  Rome  was  familar  with 
foreign  cults  ;  she  saw  the  worshippers  of  Isis  and  Osiris, 
those  of  the  great  Mother  and  those  of  Sabazius;  still, 
though  admitting  them  into  her  Pantheon,  she  gave 
them  no  place  in  her  national  religion.  All  these  Orien¬ 
tals  were  tolerated  ;  the  citizens  were  allowed  to  practice 
their  superstitions,  provided  they  were  harmless;  but 
when  Rome  perceived  that  a  new  faith  was  subversive  of 
the  Roman  spirit,  she  was  pitiless,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
conspiracy  of  the  Bacchantes,  or  the  expulsion  of  Egyp¬ 
tian  priests.  Rome  guarded  herself  against  the  foreign 
spirit;  she  feared  affiliation  with  religious  societies;  she 
was  afraid  even  of  Greek  philosophers,  and  the  Senate, 


37 


in  161,  upon  the  report  of  the  praetor  Marcus  Pom- 
ponius,  barred  them  from  entering  the  city. 

From  this,  one  may  understand  the  feeling  of  the 
Romans  toward  the  Jews.  Greeks,  Asiatics,  Egyptians, 
Germans,  or  Gauls,  while  bringing  with  them  their  rites 
and  beliefs,  made  no  objection  to  bowing  before  Mars 
of  the  Palatine,  or  even  before  Jupiter  Latiaris.  They 
conformed,  within  certain  limits,  to  the  rules  of  the  city, 
to  its  religious  customs;  at  all  events,  they  showed  no 
opposition.  Not  so  the  Jews.  They  brought  with  them 
a  religion  as  rigid,  as  ritualistic,  as  intolerant,  as  the 
Roman  religion.  Their  worship  of  Yahweh  excluded  all 
other  worship;  thus  they  shocked  their  fellow  citizens 
by  refusing  to  swear  to  the  eagles,  whereas  the  eagle  was 
the  deity  of  the  legion.  As  their  religious  faith  was 
blended  with  the  observance  of  certain  social  laws,  the 
adoption  of  this  faith  was  pregnant  with  a  change  of  the 
social  order.  Therefore  the  Romans  were  worried  by  its 
establishment  in  their  midst,  for  the  Jews  were  eager  to 
make  proselytes. 

The  proselytic  spirit  of  the  Jews  is  attested  by  all  the 
historians,  and  Philo  justly  says  :  “Our  customs  win  over 
and  convert  the  barbarians  and  the  Hellenes,  the  conti¬ 
nent  and  the  isles,  the  Orient  and  the  Occident,  Europe 
and  Asia,  the  whole  world,  from  end  to  end.” 

The  ancient  nations,  at  their  decline,  were  deeply  at¬ 
tracted  by  Judaism,  by  its  dogma  of  divine  unity,  by  its 
morals;  many  of  the  poor  people  were  attracted  by  the 
privileges  accorded  to  the  Jews.  These  proselytes  were 
divided  into  two  great  classes  :  those  who  accepted  the 
circumcision  and  thereby  entered  into  the  Jewish  com- 


38 


munity,  thus  becoming  strangers  to  their  families,  and 
those  who,  without  complying  with  the  requisites  for  ad¬ 
mission  to  the  community,  nevertheless  gathered  around 
it. 

These  conversions,  generally  by  suasion  and  at  times 
by  force,  as  when  the  rich  Jews  converted  their  slaves, 
were  bound  to  create  a  reaction.  It  was  this  chief  cause, 
together  with  the  secondary  causes  previously  referred 
to,  viz.,  the  wealth  of  the  Jews,  their  political  influence, 
their  privileged  condition,  that  led  to  anti- Judaic  dem¬ 
onstrations  at  Eome.  The  majority  of  Eoman  and  Greek 
writers  from  Cicero  on  bear  witness  to  this  state  of 
mind. 

Cicero,  who  was  a  disciple  of  Apollonius  Molo,  inher¬ 
ited  his  teacher’s  prejudices;  he  found  the  Jews  in  his 
way  :  they  were  with  the  popular  party  against  the  party 
of  the  Senate,  to  which  he  belonged.  He  feared  them, 
and  we  can  see  from  some  passages  of  Pro  Flacco ,  that 
he  hardly  dared  to  speak  of  them,  so  numerous  were  they 
around  him  and  in  the  public  place.  Nevertheless,  one 
day  he  burst  forth.  “Their  barbarous  superstitions  must 
be  fought,”  says  he;  he  accuses  them  of  being  a  nation 
“given  to  suspicion  and  slander,”  and  proceeds  by  saying 
that  they  “show  contempt  for  the  splendor  of  the  Eoman 
power,”1  They  were  to  be  feared,  according  to  him — 
those  men  who,  detaching  themselves  from  Eome,  turned 
their  eyes  towards  the  far  away  city,  that  Jerusalem, 
and  supported  it  by  denaries  which  they  drew  from  the 
Eepublic.  Moreover,  he  reproached  them  for  winning 
citizens  over  to  the  Sabbatarian  rites. 


1  Pro  Flacco. 


39 


It  is  this  last  charge  that  recurs  most  frequently  in 
the  writings  of  the  polemists,  the  poets  and  the  histo¬ 
rians.  The  Jewish  religion,  which  charmed  those  who 
had  penetrated  its  essence,  was  repulsive  to  others  who 
had  a  scant  knowledge  of  it  and  regarded  it  as  a  heap 
of  absurd  and  dismal  rites.  The  Jews  are  nothing  but 
a  superstitious  nation,  says  Persius* 1;  their  Sabbath  is  a 
lugubrious  day,  adds  Ovid2;  they  worship  the  hog  and 
the  ass,  affirms  Petronius1. 

Tacitus,  well  informed  as  he  is,  repeats,  with  regard 
to  Judaism,  the  fables  of  Manetho  and  Posidonius.  The 
J ews,  says  he,  are  descended  from  lepers,  they  honor  the 
head  of  an  ass,  they  have  infamous  rites.  He  further 
specifies  his  charges,  which,  one  would  say,  are  those  of 
modern  French  Nationalists:  “All  those  who  embrace 
their  faith,”  says  he,  “undergo  circumcision,  and  the  first 
instruction  they  receive  is  to  despise  the  gods,  to  for¬ 
swear  their  country,  to  forget  father,  mother  and  chil¬ 
dren.”  And  he  warms  up  by  saying  :  “The  J  ews  consider 
as  profane  all  that  is  held  sacred  with  us.”2  Suetonius 
and  Juvenal  repeat  the  same  thing;  the  principal  charge 
reads  :  “They  have  a  particular  cult  and  particular  laws  ; 
they  despise  the  Roman  laws.”1  This  is  likewise  the 
complaint  of  Pliny:  “They  despise  the  gods.”2 

Seneca  has  the  same  grudge,  still  with  the  philoso¬ 
pher  other  motives  supervene.  There  was  a  rivalry  be- 

1  Sat.,  V. 

2  Ars  amatoria,  I,  75,  76. 

1  Fragm.  poet. 

2Tac.,  Hist.,  v.  4,  5. 

1  Juvenal,  Sat.,  xiv,  96,  104. 

2  Hist,  nat.,  xiii  4. 


40 


tween  Seneca,  the  Stoic,  and  the  J ews,  the  same  as  there 
had  been  between  the  Stoics  and  the  J  ews  at  Alexandria. 
He  quarrelled  less  with  their  contempt  of  the  gods  than 
with  their  proselytism  which  thwarted  the  spread  of  the 
doctrine  of  the  Stoics.  He  thus  gives  expression  to  his 
displeasure  :  “The  Tomans,”  says  he  regretfully,  “have 
adopted  the  Sabbath.”1  And,  further  speaking  of  the 
Jews,  he  says  in  conclusion:  “This  abominable  nation 
has  succeeded  in  spreading  its  usages  throughout  the 
whole  world  ;  the  conquered  have  given  their  laws  to  the 
conquerors.”2  Seneca’s  view  was  in  accord  with  the  atti¬ 
tude  of  both  the  Republic  and  the  Empire,  by  which 
measures  were  adopted  from  time  to  time  to  check  Jew¬ 
ish  proselytism.  Under  Tiberius,  in  the  year  22,  a  senatus- 
consult  was  directed  against  the  Egyptian  and  Judaic 
superstitions  and  four  thousand  Jews,  says  Tacitus,  were 
deported  to  Sardinia.  Caligula  subjected  them  to  vexa¬ 
tious  persecution  ;  he  encouraged  the  doings  of  Flaecus  in 
Egypt,  and  Elaccus,  sustained  by  the  Emperor,  robbed 
the  J  ews  of  the  privileges  granted  to  them  by  Cæsar  ;  he 
took  away  from  them  their  synagogue  and  directed  that 
they  might  be  treated  as  inhabitants  of  a  captured  city. 
Domitian  imposed  a  special  tax  upon  Jews  and  those 
who  led  a  Judaic  life,  hoping  by  the  levy  of  the  tax  to 
stop  conversions,  and  Antoninus  Pius  prohibited  the 
Jews  from  circumcising  others  than  their  sons. 

Anti- Judaism  manifested  itself  not  only  at  Rome  and 
Alexandria,  but  wherever  there  were  J  ews  :  at  Antioch, 
where  great  massacres  occurred  ;  in  Lybia,  where,  under 


x  Epistle  xv. 

* De  superstitione,  fragm.  xxxvi. 


41 


Vespasian,  the  governor  Catullus  stirred  up  the  populace 
against  them;  in  Ionia,  where,  under  Augustus,  the 
Greek  cities,  by  an  understanding  among  themselves, 
forced  the  Jews  either  to  renounce  their  faith  or  to  bear 
the  entire  burden  of  public  expenditures. 

Yet  it  is  impossible  to  speak  of  the  persecution  of  the 
Jews  without  speaking  of  the  persecution  of  the  Chris¬ 
tians.  For  a  long  time  Jews  and  Christians,  these 
hostile  brothers,  were  included  in  the  same  contempt, 
and  the  same  causes  which  made  the  Jews  hateful  made 
the  Christians  hateful  as  well.  The  disciples  of  the 
Nazarene  brought  into  the  ancient  world  the  same  deadly 
principles.  If  the  Jews  taught  the  people  to  leave  their 
gods,  to  abandon  husband,  father,  child  and  wife,  and  to 
come  to  Jehovah,  Jesus  also  said:  “I  have  not  come  to 
unite,  but  to  separate.”  The  Christians,  like  the  Jews, 
refused  to  bow  to  the  eagle  ;  like  the  J ews  they  would  not 
lie  prostrate  before  idols.  Like  the  Jews,  the  Christians 
knew  another  country  than  Rome;  like  the  Jews,  they 
would  be  oblivious  of  their  civic,  rather  than  their  re¬ 
ligious  duties. 

Thus,  during  the  first  years  of  the  Christian  era,  the 
Synagogue  and  the  ancient  Church  were  despised  alike. 
Simultaneously  with  the  Jews  “a  certain  chrestus”x  and 
his  followers  were  driven  from  Rome.  Each  side  en¬ 
deavored  to  convince  the  people  that  it  ought  not  to  be 
mistaken  for  the  other,  and  no  sooner  did  Christianity 
make  itself  heard  than  it  rejected,  in  its  turn,  the 
descendants  of  Abraham. 


1  Suetonius,  Claud.,  25. 


42 


CHAPTER  in. 

ANTI-JUDAISM  IN  CHRISTIAN  ANTIQUITY  FROM  THE 
FOUNDATION  OF  THE  CHURCH  OF  CONSTANTINE. 

The  Church  and  the  Synagogue. — Jewish  Privileges  and 
the  First  Christians. — Jewish  Hostility. — Judaic 
Patriotism. — Christian  Proselytism  and  the  Rabbis. 
— Attacks  upon  Christianity. — The  Apostates  and 
Maledictions. — Stephen  and  James. — Jewish  Influ¬ 
ence  Contested. — Christianity  Among  the  Pagans 
and  Among  the  Jews. — Peter  and  Paul. — Judaiz- 
ing  Heresies. — The  Ebionites,  the  Elkasaites,  the 
Nazarenes,  the  Quartodecimans. — Gnosticism  and 
Jewish  Alexandrinism. — Simon  the  Magician,  the 
Mcolaites  and  Cerinthus. — First  Apostolic  Scrip¬ 
tures  and  the  Tendencies  of  the  Judaizing. — The 
Epistles  to  the  Colossians  and  Ephesians,  the  Pas¬ 
torals,  the  Second  Epistle  of  Peter,  the  Epistle  of 
Jude,  the  Apocalypse. — The  Epistle  to  Barnabas, 
the  Seven  Letters  of  Ignatius  of  Antioch. — Chris¬ 
tian  Apologists  and  J ewish  Exegesis. — The  letter  to 
Diognetus. — The  Testament  of  the  Twelve  Patri¬ 
archs. — Justin  and  the  Dialogue  with  Tryphon. — 
Aristo  of  Pella  and  the  Dialogue  of  Jason  with  Pap - 
iscus. — Christian  Expansion  and  Jewish  Prosely¬ 
tism. — Rivalries  and  Hatred  ;  Persecutions  ;  The 
Case  of  Polycarp. — The  Polemics. — The  Bible,  the 
Septuagint,  Aquila’s  Version  and  the  Hexapla. — 


43 


Origen  and  Rabbi  Simlai. — Abbaliu  of  Caesarea  and 
the  Physician  Jacob  the  Minæan. — The  Contra  Cel- 
sum  and  Jewish  Ridicule. — Theological  Anti- Juda¬ 
ism. — Tertullian  and  De  Adversus  Iudaeos. — 
Cyprian  and  The  Three  Books  Against  the  Jews. — 
Minucius  Felix. — Commodian  and  Lactantius. — 
Constantine  and  the  Triumph  of  the  Church. 

The  Church  is  the  daughter  of  the  Synagogue;  she 
owes  her  early  development  to  the  Synagogue;  she  grew 
in  the  shade  of  the  Temple,  and  from  her  first  infant  cry 
she  opposed  her  mother,  which  was  quite  natural,  for 
they  were  divided  by  a  wide  divergence  of  opinion. 

In  the  first  centuries  of  the  Christian  era,  during  tire 
apostolic  age,  Christian  communities  sprang  forth  from 
Jewish  communities,  like  a  swarm  of  bees  escaping  from 
a  beehive  ;  they  settled  on  the  same  soil. 

J esus  was  not  yet  born  when  the  J ews  had  built  their 
prayer-houses  in  the  cities  of  the  Orient  and  the  Occi¬ 
dent;  their  expansion  to  Asia  Minor,  Egypt,  Cyrenaica, 
Rome,  Greece  and  Spain  has  already  been  noted.  By 
their  unceasing  proselytism,  by  their  preaching,  by  the 
moral  influence  they  exercised  over  the  nations  amidst 
whom  they  lived,  they  paved  the  way  for  Christianity. 
True,  even  before  them  philosophers  had  arrived  at  the 
conception  of  one  God,  but  the  teaching  of  the  philos¬ 
ophers  was  restricted  to  the  few;  it  was  not  accessible 
to  the  common  people,  to  those  of  humble  station  whom 
the  metaphysicians  rather  despised.  The  Jews  addressed 
the  little  ones,  the  weak,  and  planted  in  their  souls 
germs  of  new  ideas  which  had  theretofore  been  foreign 
to  them.  They  brought  with  them  the  spirit  of  the 


44 


prophets,  the  spirit  of  brotherhood,  pity  and  also  of  re¬ 
volt,  that  spirit  which  begat  the  pitying  and  sullen  anger 
of  Jeremiah  and  Isaiah  and  led  to  the  tender  sweetness 
of  Hillel,  that  spirit  which  inspired  Jesus. 

This  immense  class  of  proselytes  won  over  by  the  J ews, 
this  God-fearing  multitude,  was  ready  to  receive  the 
broader  and  more  humanitarian  teachings  of  J esus,  those 
teachings  which  the  universal  Church,  from  its  very 
inception,  undertook  to  adulterate  and  to  turn  away  from 
their  true  meaning.  These  converts  whose  numbers 
steadily  increased  during  the  first  century  before  Christ, 
were  free  from  the  national  prejudices  of  Israel;  they 
Judaized,  but  their  eyes  were  not  turned  toward  Jerusa¬ 
lem,  and,  one  may  say,  the  fervid  patriotism  of  the  J  ews 
rather  checked  the  conversions.  The  Apostles,  or  at 
least  some  of  them,  completely  separated  the  precepts  of 
the  Jewish  faith  from  the  narrow  idea  of  nationality7  ; 
they  built  upon  the  foundation  of  Jewish  work  accom¬ 
plished  before  and  thus  won  for  themselves  the  souls  of 
those  who  had  received  the  J ewish  seed. 

The  Apostles  preached  in  the  synagogues.  In  the 
cities,  where  they  arrived,  they  wrent  straight  to  the 
prayer-houses  and  there  made  their  propaganda  and 
found  their  first  helpers;  later  a  Christian  community 
was  founded,  side  by  side  with  the  Jewish  community, 
and  the  original  Jewish  nucleus  was  increased  by  all 
those  whom  they  had  convinced  among  the  Gentiles. 

Without  the  existence  of  Jewish  colonies  Christianity 
would  have  encountered  much  greater  obstacles  ;  it  would 
have  had  greater  difficulties  in  establishing  itself.  As 
has  been  stated,  the  J  ews  in  ancient  society  enjoyed  con- 


45 


siderable  privileges;  they  had  protective  charters  as¬ 
suring  them  an  independent  political  and  judicial  organi¬ 
zation  and  freedom  of  worship.  These  privileges  facili¬ 
tated  the  development  of  the  Christian  churches.  For 
a  long  time  the  associations  of  the  Christians  were  not 
distinguished  by  the  authorities  from  Jewish  associ¬ 
ations,  the  Roman  government  taking  no  cognizance  of 
the  division  betwen  the  two  religions.  Christianity  was 
treated  as  a  Jewish  sect,  thus  benefiting  by  the  same 
advantages  ;  it  was  not  only  tolerated,  but,  in  an  indirect 
way,  protected  by  the  imperial  governors. 

Thus,  on  the  one  hand,  unwillingly,  the  Jews  were 
unconscious  auxiliaries  of  Christianity  while,  on  the 
other  hand,  they  were  its  enemies,  for  which  there  were 
numerous  reasons.  It  is  known  that  Jesus  and  his 
teachings  enlisted  their  first  following  among  the  Gali¬ 
lean  provincials  who  were  despised  by  the  Jerusalemites 
for  having  yielded  more  than  others  to  foreign  influences. 
“Can  there  any  good  thing  come  out  of  Nazareth?”  they 
said.  These  humble  folks  of  Galilee,  though  much 
attached  to  the  Judaic  rites  and  customs,  in  which  re¬ 
spect  they  were,  perhaps,  stricter  than  the  J erusalemites, 
were  ignorant  of  the  Law  and  were  therefore  despised  by 
the  haughty  doctors  of  Judea.  This  scorn  likewise  fol¬ 
lowed  the  first  disciples  of  Jesus,  some  of  whom,  besides, 
belonged  to  the  disreputable  classes,  such  e.  g .,  as  the 
publicans. 

Nevertheless,  while  the  origin  of  the  primitive  Chris¬ 
tians  brought  upon  them  the  scorn  of  the  Jews,  it  was 
not  enough  to  excite  their  hatred;  graver  reasons  were 


46 


required  for  that,  foremost  among  them  was  Jewish 
patriotism. 

The  birth  and  early  development  of  Christianity  coin¬ 
cided  with  the  time  when  the  Jewish  nation  attempted 
to  shake  off  the  yoke  of  Borne.  Offended  in  their  relig¬ 
ious  feelings,  ill-treated  by  the  Koman  administration, 
the  Jews  felt  a  yearning  for  liberty,  which  grew  with 
their  hatred  of  Borne.  Bands  of  zealots  and  assassins 
traversed  the  mountains  of  Judea,  entering  the  villages 
and  wreaking  vengeance  upon  Borne  by  striking  those 
of  their  brethren  who  bowed  to  the  imperial  authority. 
Plainly,  these  zealots  and  assassins  who  attacked  the 
Sadducees  for  mere  complacency  towards  the  Boman 
procurators,  could  not  spare  the  disciples  of  Him  to 
whom  the  words  were  attributed,  “Bender  unto  Cæsar 
the  things  which  are  Cæsar’s.”) 

Absorbed  in  the  expectation  of  the  coming  Messianic 
reign,  the  Jewish  Christians  of  those  days  were  “men 
without  a  country”  ;  the  thought  of  free  Judea  no  longer 
made  their  hearts  throb,  though  some,  like  the  seer  of 
the  Apocalypse,  had  a  horror  of  Borne,  still  they  had  no 
passion  for  captive  Jerusalem,  which  the  zealots  strove 
to  liberate  ;  they  were  unpatriotic. 

When  all  Galilee  rose  in  response  to  the  appeal  of  John 
of  Gischala,  they  held  aloof,  and  when  the  Jerusalemites 
triumphed  over  Cestius  G  alius,  the  Jewish  Christians, 
indifferent  to  the  outcome  of  this  supreme  struggle,  fled 
from  Jerusalem,  crossed  the  Jordan  and  sought  refuge 
at  Pella.  In  the  last  battles  which  Bar  Giora,  John  of 
Gischala  and  their  faithful  gave  to  the  Boman  power, 
to  the  trained  legions  of  Vespasian  and  Titus,  the  dis- 


47 


ciples  of  J esus  took  no  part  ;  and  when  Zion  was  reduced 
to  ashes,  burying  under  its  ruins  the  nation  of  Israel,  no 
Christian  met  his  death  amidst  the  destruction. 

One  may  well  understand  what  could  have  been  the 
treatment  accorded,  in  those  days  of  exaltation,  before, 
during  and  after  the  insurrection,  to  the  Jewish  and 
Gentile  Christians,  who,  with  St.  Paul,  counseled  sub¬ 
mission  to  the  power  of  Rome.  The  patriotic  indigna¬ 
tion  roused  by  the  nascent  Church  was  seconded  by 
the  wrath  of  the  rabbis  against  Christian  proselytism. 

Originally  the  relations  between  the  Jewish  Christians 

and  the  Jews  were  fairly  cordial.  The  followers  of  the 

Apostles,  as  well  as  the  Apostles  themselves,  recognized 

the  sanctity  of  the  ancient  law;  they  observed  the  rites 

of  Judaism  and  as  yet  had  not  placed  the  worship  of 

J  esus  side  bv  side  with  that  of  the  one  God.  The  devel- 
»/ 

opment  of  the  dogma  of  the  divinity  of  Christ  made  a 
breach  between  the  Church  and  the  Synagogue.  Juda¬ 
ism  could  not  admit  of  the  deification  of  a  man;  to 
recognize  any  one  as  the  son  of  God  was  blasphemy  ;  and 
as  the  Jewish  Christians  had  not  severed  their  connec¬ 
tions  with  the  Jewish  community,  they  were  disciplined. 
This  accounts  for  the  flagellation  of  the  Apostles  and 
the  new  converts,  the  stoning  of  Stephen  and  the  behead¬ 
ing  of  the  Apostle  James. 

After  the  capture  of  Jerusalem,  after  that  storm  which 
left  Judea  depopulated,  the  best  of  her  sons  having  per¬ 
ished  in  battle,  or  in  the  circus  where  they  were  delivered 
to  the  beasts,  or  in  the  lead  mines  of  Egypt,  during  this 
third  captivity  called  by  the  Jews  the  Roman  exile,  the 
relations  between  the  Jews  and  Jewish  Christians  became 


48 


still  more  strained.  Their  country  being  dead,  Israel 
gathered  around  their  doctors.  Jabne,  where  the  San¬ 
hedrin  reconvened,  replaced  Zion  without  extinguishing 
its  memory,  and  the  conquered  attached  themselves  still 
more  closely  to  the  Law  which  the  sages  commented 
upon. 

Thenceforth,  those  who  assailed  that  Law,  which  had 
become  the  most  cherished  heritage  of  the  Jew,  were  to 
be  treated  as  enemies  worse  than  the  Koreans.  The  doc¬ 
tors  accordingly  fought  the  Christian  doctrine  which  was 
making  proselytes  amidst  their  flock,  and  their  attitude 
explains  the  severe  words  against  the  Pharisees  which 
the  evangelists  put  into  the  mouth  of  Jesus.  These 
doctors,  the  Tanaim ,  merely  defended  their  religious 
faith  ;  they  acted  like  all  the  pillars  of  religion  and  con¬ 
stituted  authority  towards  their  assailants,  and  they  con¬ 
ducted  themselves  with  as  little  logic  and  intelligence. 
“The  Gospels  must  be  burned — says  Kabbi  Tarphon — for 
paganism  is  not  as  dangerous  to  the  Jewish  faith  as  the 
Jewish  Christian  sects.  I  should  rather  seek  refuge  in 
a  pagan  temple  than  in  an  assembly  of  Jewish  Chris¬ 
tians.”  He  was  not  the  only  one  who  thought  so,  and  all 
the  rabbis  comprehended  the  danger  threatening  Juda¬ 
ism  from  Jewish  Christianity.  Thus  it  was  not  against 
those  who  preached  to  the  gentiles  that  their  first  wrath 
was  directed,  but  against  those  who  came  to  seek  sheep 
in  their  own  fold  ;  and,  if  measures  were  taken,  it  was 
against  their  own  apostates. 

Some  modern  interpreters  of  the  Talmud  have  gone 
to  the  rabbinical  discussions  and  decisions  of  that  epoch 
for  weapons  against  the  Jews,  accusing  them  of  blind 


49 


hatred  against  anything  that  did  not  bear  the  mark 
of  Israel  ;  they  do  not  seem,  however,  to  have  carried 
into  their  researches  the  requisite  scientific  spirit  and 
good  faith. 

The  Sanhedrin  of  Jabne  regulates  the  relations  be¬ 
tween  the  J ews  and  the  Minæns  ;  the  latter  are  none 
others  but  Jewish  Christians,  Jews  deemed  apostates, 
traitors  against  God  and  the  Law.  It  is  they  that  are 
declared  inferior  to  the  Samaritans  and  the  Gentiles;  it 
is  with  them  that  all  intercourse  is  enjoined.  It  was  at 
a  much  later  epoch  that  these  injunctions  were  applied 
to  Christians  generally,  viz.  :  when  the  Christians  became 
persecutors.  Thus  it  was  that  some,  exasperated  by  suf¬ 
fering  and  humiliation,  applied  to  them  what  is  said  in 
the  Talmud  against  Goim ,  i.  e.,  those  Hellenes  of 
Cæsarea  and  Palestine  who  were  always  at  w~ar  with  the 
Jews. 

Originally,  all  Talmudical  inhibitions  contemplated 
the  Jewish  Christians  alone.  The  Tanaim  wanted  to 
preserve  the  faithful  from  Christian  contamination;  for 
this  purpose  the  Gospels  were  likened  to  books  on  witch¬ 
craft,  and  Samuel  Junior,  by  order  of  the  patriarch 
Gamaliel,  inserted  in  the  daily  prayers  a  curse  against 
the  Jewish  Christians,  Birkat  TIaminim ,  which  has  fur¬ 
nished  the  foundation  for  the  charge  that  the  J  ews  curse 
Jesus  thrice  a  day. 

While  the  Jews  thus  sought  to  separate  themselves 
from  the  Christians,  the  Church,  swayed  by  a  great  re¬ 
ligious  movement,  was  forced  to  cast  away  Judaism.  To 
conquer  the  world,  to  become  a  universal  creed,  Chris¬ 
tianity  had  to  rid  itself  of  Jewish  particularism,  to 


50 


break  the  narrow  chains  of  the  ancient  law,  so  as  to  be 
able  to  spread  the  new  one.  This  was  the  work  of  St. 
Paul,  the  true  founder  of  the  Church,  who  opposed  to  the 
exclusiveness  of  the  Jewish-Christian  doctrine  the  prin¬ 
ciple  of  catholicity. 

As  is  well  known,  the  struggle  between  these  two  ten¬ 
dencies  in  the  nascent  Christianity,  which  were  symbol¬ 
ized  by  Peter  and  Paul,  was  long  and  bitter.  The  whole 
apostolic  service  of  Paul  was  a  long  battle  against  the 
Judaizing.  On  the  day  when  the  Apostle  declared  that 
in  order  to  come  to  Jesus  one  need  not  pass  through  the 
Synagogue  nor  accept  the  sign  of  the  old  covenant,  the 
circumcision,  on  that  very  day  all  ties  which  bound  the 
Christian  Church  to  its  mother  were  torn  and  the  nations 
of  the  world  were  won  over  by  J esus. 

The  resistance  of  the  Judaizing  who  wanted  to  belong 
to  Jesus  and  at  the  same  time  to  observe  the  Sabbath 
and  the  Passover,  was  in  vain;  their  prejudice  against 
the  conversion  of  the  Gentiles  was  of  no  avail.  After 
Pauks  journey  to  Asia  Minor  the  cause  of  Catholicism 
was  won.  The  Apostle  was  braced  up  by  an  army,  and 
that  army  arra}^ed  against  the  Jewish  spirit  the  Hellenic, 
Antioch  against  Jerusalem. 

The  great  bulk  of  the  Jewish  Christians  tore  them¬ 
selves  away  from  the  narrow  doctrine  of  the  little  com¬ 
munity  of  J erusalem  ;  the  ruin  of  the  holy  city  led  them 
to  doubt  the  efficacy  of  the  ancient  law.  It  was  good  for 
the  further  development  of  the  Church.  Ebionism  met 
its  death.  If  Christianity  had  followed  the  Jerusalem¬ 
ites  it  would  have  remained  a  small  Jewish  sect.  To 
become  the  creed  of  the  world,  Christianity  had  to  cast 


51 


off  Jewish  particularism.  Indeed,  the  new  believers, 
the  Gentiles,  could  not  observe  the  Jewish  religion  while 
remaining  Greeks  or  Komans.  Having  rid  itself  of  the 
Ebionites  and  the  Jewish  Christians  and  cut  loose  from 
its  mother,  Christianity  allowed  the  nations  to  come  to 
it  without  forfeiting  their  individuality,  whereas  Peter 
and  the  Judaizing  would  have  forced  upon  them  the 
customs  of  Israel,  thereby  compelling  them  to  give  up  a 
part  of  their  national  individuality  and  to  accept  that 
of  their  converters. 

Thus,  what  was  originally  a  branch  of  the  orthodox 
Church,  gave  birth,  towards  the  end  of  the  first  century, 
to  two  heresies,  Ebionism  and  Elkasaism.  Their  forma¬ 
tion  was  quite  natural,  since  the  bulk  of  the  Jewish 
Christians  accepted  the  ideas  of  Paul  and  united  with 
the  Christian  converts  from  paganism;  there  remained 
only  the  small  group  of  stubborn  Judaizing,  who  origin¬ 
ally  represented  staunch  orthodoxy.  Since,  however, 
the  Church  had  adopted  a  new  course,  they  became 
heretics.  Nevertheless  their  spirit  remained,  and  we 
shall  find  it  again  among  the  Nazarenes  and  the  Quar- 
todecimans;  but  since  that  time  they  were  enemies  of 
catholicity,  and  catholicity  turned  against  them,  or, 
rather,  it  fought  Judaism  from  which  they  drew  their 
force. 

To  safeguard  its  supremacy,  the  Church  had  to  fight 
the  Jewish  spirit  in  two  forms.  The  first  was  that 
noted  above,  the  Judaic  positivism,  hostile  to  anthropo¬ 
morphism  and  deification  of  heroes.  Nevertheless  this 
positivism  has  maintained  its  existence  throughout  the 
ages  so  that  a  history  of  the  Jewish  current  in  the  Chris- 


52 


tian  Church  could  be  written,  beginning  with  early 
Ebionism  down  to  Protestantism,  including  among 
others  the  Unitarians  and  Arians. 

The  second  form  is  the  mystic  form  represented  by 
the  Alexandrian  and  Asiatic  gnosis.  The  Alexandrian  . 
J  ews,  as  known,  were  influenced  by  Platonism 
and  Pythagorism;  Philo  himself  was  the  forerunner  of 
Plotinus  and  Porphyry  in  this  renovation  of  the  meta¬ 
physical  spirit.  Aided  by  Hellenic  doctrines  the  Jews 
interpreted  the  Bible  and  scrutinized  the  mysteries  con¬ 
tained  therein,  construing  them  into  allegories  and 
further  developing  them. 

Proceeding  from  monotheism  and  the  conception  of  a 
personal  God  as  their  religious  point  of  departure,  the 
Jews  of  Alexandria  were  bound  to  come  metaphysically 
to  pantheism,  to  the  idea  of  a  divine  substance,  to  the 
doctrine  of  intermediaries  between  man  and  the  Abso¬ 
lute,  i.  e.j  to  emanations,  to  the  Eons  of  Valentinus  and 
the  Sephiroths  of  Kabbala.  To  this  Jewish  fund  were 
superadded  the  contributions  of  Chaldean,  Persian  and 
Egyptian  religions,  which  coexisted  at  Alexandria;  at 
that  time  were  elaborated  those  extraordinary  Gnostic 
théogonies,  so  multifarious,  so  varied,  so  madly  mystical. 

When  Christianity  was  born,  the  gnosis  was  already  in 
existence;  the  Gospels  brought  new  elements  into  it;  it 
speculated  on  the  life  and  words  of  Jesus,  as  it  had 
speculated  on  the  Old  Testament,  and  when  the  Apostles, 
in  their  early  preaching,  addressed  themselves  to  the 
Gentiles,  they  were  confronted  with  the  Gnostics,  and 
primarily  the  Jewish  Gnostics.  Peter  met  them  at 
Samaria  in  the  person  of  Simon  the  Magician;  Paul 


53 


faced  them  at  Colosse,  at  Ephesus,  at  Antioch, 
wherever  he  came  with  his  Gospel,  and  possibly  he  fought 
Cerinthus;1  John  himself  fought  them,2  and,  in  the 
Epistles  of  the  Apocalypse  he  opposed  the  Mcolaites  who 
were  “of  the  Synagogue  of  Satan.” 

After  having  escaped  the  danger  of  crystallizing  into  a 
barren  Jewish  community,  the  Church  was  thus  exposed 
to  the  new  danger  of  Gnosticism,  which,  if  triumphant, 
would  have  resulted  in  splitting  it  up  into  small  sects 
and  breaking  its  unity. 

Though  at  a  later  date  Christianity  witnessed  the  birth 
of  the  Hellenic  gnosis,  originally  it  had  found  only  the 
Jewish  gnosis,  i.  e ,,  that  of  the  Nicolaites  and  of  Cerin¬ 
thus,  or  similar  systems  built  upon  a  Judaic  basis. 

All  preachers  of  the  Christian  religion  had  to  contend 
against  this  gnosis  ;  traces  of  that  fight  are  found  in  the 
Epistles  of  Paul  to  the  Colossians  and  Ephesians,  in  the 
pastoral  letters,  in  the  second  Epistle  of  Peter,  in  the 
Epistle  of  Jude  and  in  the  Apocalypse.  They  did  not 
confine  themselves  to  persecuting  the  Jewish  spirit  in 
the  gnosis  ;  as  soon  as  the  Pauline  spirit  had  triumphed 
over  Peter,  they  declared  war  to  the  Judaizing  tenden¬ 
cies  within  the  Church,  as  well  as  to  the  J ews  themselves. 

Since  182,  after  the  insurrection  of  Bar-Cochba, 
the  separation  of  the  Christians  from  the  Jews  became 
final.  In  70  the  Jewish  Christians  exhibited  indiffer¬ 
ence  to  the  destinies  of  the  Jewish  nation;  under  Ha¬ 
drian  it  was  still  worse.  Five  hundred  thousand  Jews  re¬ 
sponded  to  the  call  of  the  Son  of  the  Star,  and  the 


1  St.  Irenaeus,  II,  26. 

2  Apocalypse,  II  and  III. 


54 


Roman  legions  retreated  before  them;  it  required  the 
best  general  of  the  Empire  to  overcome  this  handful  of 
Judeans  who  fought  for  their  liberty  against  Rome,  and 
the  last  feeble  hope  of  Israel  perished  with  its  last  citadel, 
Bethany,  and  its  last  liberator,  Bar-Cochba;  measures 
of  extreme  repression  were  taken  against  the  J  ews  ;  they 
were  forbidden  to  observe  their  religion;  the  spot  where 
Jerusalem  had  stood  was  levelled  with  the  plow,  and  the 
very  name  of  Jerusalem  disappeared;  at  that  hour  the 
Jewish  Christians  would  report  to  the  provincial  gov¬ 
ernors  the  Jews  who  clandestinely  observed  their  rites 
and  devoted  themselves  to  the  study  of  the  Law. 

On  the  other  hand,  to  prevent  treason,  Bar-Cochba 
and  his  soldiers  executed  a  great  many  Jewish  Chris¬ 
tians  and  measures  were  taken  to  distinguish  the  Chris¬ 
tians  from  the  Jews.  On  both  sides  the  enmity  was 
very  bitter,  and  since  the  Church  of  Jerusalem  had,  after 
131,  become  Helleno-Christian,  the  rupture  was  com¬ 
plete:  Jews  and  Christians  became  enemies  for  ages  to 
come. 

On  the  one  hand  the  Gentiles,  who  joined  the  Chris¬ 
tian  community,  brought  with  them  all  the  hatred  and 
prejudices  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans  against  the  Jews. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  Jewish  Christians,  after  with¬ 
drawing  from  the  Jewish  community,  became  still  more 
embittered  against  their  brethren  in  Israel  than  the 
Gentiles. 

We  find  all  these  sentiments  reflected  in  the  writings 
of  the  Apostle  Fathers,  with  a  growing  desire  to  sep¬ 
arate  Christianity  from  Judaism;  and  with  the  develop¬ 
ment  of  the  dogma  of  the  divinity  of  Jesus,  the  Jews  be- 


55 


came  the  abominable  people  of  Deicides,  which  they  had 
not  been  originally.  The  Synagogue  is  now  “the  erst¬ 
while  fruitful  wife,”  in  the  words  of  the  II  Clementine 
Ilomily ,  and  it  is  thought  that  “the  law  of  Moses  was 
not  made  for  the  Jews,  who  never  comprehended  it.” 
This  expression  is  found  in  the  Epistle  of  Barnabas, 
dating  from  the  time  of  Eerva  (A.  D.  96)  and  for  the 
most  part  reproducing  the  ideas  contained  in  the  oldest 
of  the  apostolic  writings,  viz.,  the  Doctrine  of  the  Twelve 
Apostles ,  which  can  be  traced  to  the  year  90. 1  The 
Pauline  traditions  resound  in  the  beginning  of  the  second 
century  in  the  seven  letters  of  Ignatius  of  Antioch  ad¬ 
dressed  to  the  churches  of  Rome,  Magnesia,  Philadelphia, 
Ephesus,  Smyrna  and  Tralles  and  to  the  Bishop  Poly¬ 
carp.  These  seven  letters  attack  very  strongly  the 
Judaizing  Docetae  and  try  to  guard  the  faithful  against 
those  doctrines. 

Still  in  face  of  these  hostile  demonstrations  the  Jews 
were  not  inactive  and  proved  very  dangerous  adversaries. 
It  was  under  the  fire  of  their  criticism  that  the  dogma 
was  constructed;  it  was  they  who,  by  their  subtle  ex- 
egetics,  by  their  firm  logic,  forced  the  teachers  of  Chris¬ 
tianity  to  give  precision  to  their  arguments.  Their  hos¬ 
tility  worried  the  theologians;  though  having  severed 
themselves  from  Judaism,  they  wanted  to  win 
over  the  Jews  to  their  side;  they  believed  that 
the  triumph  of  Jesus  would  only  be  assured  on  the 
day  when  Israel  would  recognize  the  power  of 
the  Son  of  God  ;  Indeed,  this  belief  has  sur¬ 
vived  under  different  forms  throughout  the  ages.  It 


1  Doctrina  duodecim  apostolorum.  E<1.  Funk.  1887. 


56 


would  seem  as  though  the  Church  were  not  satisfied  of 
the  legitimacy  of  its  faith  until  the  day  when  the  people 
of  whom  its  God  had  come  were  converted  to  the  Gali¬ 
lean.  This  sentiment  was  far  stronger  in  the  hearts  of 
the  first  Fathers  than  it  could  have  been  with  Bossuet 
and  the  Figurists  of  the  seventeenth  century.  It  was, 
therefore,  necessary  to  defeat  the  Jewish  exegesis,  and  to 
borrow  from  them  for  this  purpose  their  own  arms,  i.  e., 
the  Bible.  Efforts  were  made  to  demonstrate  to  the  J ews 
that  the  prophecies  had  been  fulfilled;  that  Jesus  was  he 
whose  coming  Isaiah  and  David  had  announced;  it  was 
even  sought  to  prove  to  them  that  the  Christian  doctrines 
were  found  in  the  Old  Testament;  proofs  in  support  of 
the  Trinity  were  drawn  from  the  opening  words  of 
Genesis  or  from  the  meeting  of  Abraham  with  the  three 
angels.  For  centuries  the  defenders  of  Christ  and  the 
enemies  of  the  Jews  employed  no  other  method. 

This  work  was  taken  up  by  the  apologists  of  Christian¬ 
ity,  and  their  apologetic  prepossession  was  mixed  with 
violent  enmity.  Thus  the  Letter  to  Diognetus ,  which  has 
been  preserved  for  us  in  the  work  of  St.  Justin,  and  was 
written  to  refute  the  errors  of  the  adversaries  of  the 
Christians,  may  be  considered  as  one  of  the  first  anti- 
Jewish  writings.  The  unknown  author  of  this  brief 
epistle,  in  his  vigorous  attack  upon  the  Millenarian  ideas, 
speaks  of  the  Jewish  rites  as  superstitions.  The  motives 
are  not  the  same  as  those  which  actuated  the  unknown 
author  of  the  Testament  of  the  Twelve  Patriarchs ,  for 
he  wanted,  and  so  he  declared,  to  convert  the  Jews  and 
convince  them  of  the  excellence  of  the  word  of  Christ. 

The  most  thorough  of  the  apologists  of  that  epoch  is 


57 


assuredly  Justin,  the  philosopher.  His  Dialogue  with 
Tryphon  will  remain  a  model  of  this  kind  of  dialogical 
polemics,  of  which  we  have  another  sample  from  the 
same  epoch  in  the  Altercation  of  Jason  and  Papiscus , 
from  the  pen  of  the  Greek  Ariston  of  Pella;  the  latter 
dialogue  was  reproduced  in  the  fifth  century  by  Evagrius, 
in  his  Altercation  of  Simon  and  Theophilus.  Justin,  a 
native  of  Samaria,  and  well  acquainted  with  the  Judeans, 
puts  all  the  objections  of  the  Jewish  exegetes  into  the 
mouth  of  Tryphon,  meant  to  represent  Rabbi  Tarphon, 
who  vigorously  fought  against  the  apostolic  evangeliza¬ 
tion.  The  author  attempts  to  persuade  him  that  the 
New  Testament  is  in  accord  with  the  Old,  and  to  recon¬ 
cile  monotheism  with  the  theory  of  Messiah  as  the  Word 
incarnate.  At  the  same  time,  replying  to  Tryphon’s  re¬ 
proach  that  the  Christians  have  abandoned  the  Mosaic 
law,  he  maintains  that  it  was  merely  a  preparatory  law. 
Justin  attacked  the  Judaizing  tendencies  in  both  forms, 
viz.,  Jewish  Christianity  on  the  one  hand,  and,  on  the 
other,  Alexandrinism,  which  would  admit  the  Word  only 
as  a  temporary  irradiation  of  the  One  Being.  He  closes 
with  the  warning:  “Blaspheme  not  the  Son  of  God; 
listen  not  to  the  Pharisees;  ridicule  not  the  King  of 
Israel,  as  you  are  doing  daily.”  The  irony  of  the  Jews 
he  met  with  sarcasm  directed  against  the  rabbis:  “In¬ 
stead  of  expounding  the  meaning  of  the  prophecies  your 
teachers  indulge  in  tomfoolery  ;  they  are  anxious  to  ascer¬ 
tain  why  male  camels  are  referred  to  in  this  or  that 
passage,  or  why  a  certain  quantity  of  flour  is  required 
for  your  oblations.  They  are  worried  to  know  why  an 
alpha  is  added  to  the  original  name  of  Abraham.  This 


58 


is  the  subject  of  their  studies.  As  to  things  essential, 
worthy  of  meditation,  they  dare  not  speak  of  them  to 
you,  they  do  not  attempt  to  explain  them,  and  they  pro¬ 
hibit  you  from  listening  to  our  interpretation.” 

The  last  complaint  is  important,  it  indicates  the  char¬ 
acter  of  the  struggle  for  the  conquest  of  souls  in  which 
J udaism  was  defeated.  The  second  century  is  one  of  the 
most  momentous  epochs  in  the  history  of  the  Church. 
The  dogma,  still  uncertain  in  the  first  century,  is  then 
formulated  and  defined;  Jesus  advances  toward  divinity 
and  attains  it,  and  his  metaphysics,  his  worship,  his  con¬ 
ception,  are  blended  with  Judeo-Alexandrian  doctrines, 
with  Philo’s  theories  of  the  Word  of  God,  the  Chaldean 
memra  and  the  Greek  logos.  The  Word  is  born,  it 
becomes  identified  with  the  Galilean  ;  in  Justin’s  apolo¬ 
getics  and  the  fourth  Gospel,  we  see  the  work  completed. 
Christianity  has  become  Alexandrian,  and  its  most  ar¬ 
dent  upholders,  its  defenders,  even  its  orators,  are  at  that 
hour  the  Christian  philosophers  of  the  Alexandrian 
school:  Justin,  the  author  of  the  fourth  Gospel,  and 
Clement. 

While  this  dogmatic  transformation  was  going  on,  the 
idea  of  a  universal  church  gained  strength.  Bonds  of 
union  were  formed  between  the  small  Christian  com¬ 
munities,  detached  from  Jewish  congregations  ;  the  more 
their  numbers  increased  the  stronger  became  the  ties, 
and  this  conception  of  unity  and  catholicity  kept  pace 
with  the  growing  expansion  of  Christianity. 

This  expansion  could  not  proceed  undisturbed.  Chris¬ 
tian  preaching  addressed  itself  to  all  the  Jewries  of 
Asia  Minor,  Egypt,  Cyrenaica  and  Italy,  wherever  there 


59 


was  an  unorthodox  element  among  them,  the  Hellenized 
Jews  whom  the  Christian  teachers  sought  to  win  over  to 
their  side.  The  propagandists  likewise  spoke  to  the 
anxious  masses  who  had  already  lent  their  ears  to  the 
Jewish  word.  The  Jews  witnessed  the  failure  of  their 
influence  and,  perhaps,  of  their  hopes  ;  at  all  events,  they 
saw  their  beliefs,  their  faith,  attacked  by  the  neo¬ 
phytes;  the  feeling  of  the  Jews  against  the  Christians 
was  as  bitter  as  that  of  the  Christians  when  they  saw  the 
obstacles  which  the  Jewish  preachers  put  in  their  way. 
Furious  hatred  was  mutual,  and  the  parties  were  not 
content  with  Platonic  hatred.  Originally  the  Jews  had 
a  better  official  standing  than  the  Christians.  The 
Christian  congregations,  unlike  the  Jewish  communities, 
were  not  recognized  by  the  law;  they  were  considered 
enemies  of  law  and  a  danger  to  the  Empire.  From  this 
there  was  but  one  step  to  violence  ;  this  accounts  for  the 
periods  of  suffering  the  Church  had  to  go  through.  The 
Church,  in  those  evil  days,  could  not  count  upon  its  rival, 
the  Synagogue,  for  assistance;  in  some  places  where  the 
struggle  between  the  Jews  and  the  Chirstians  had 
reached  an  acute  stage  the  Jews,  recognized  by  Roman 
legislation  and  possessed  of  vested  rights,  would  join  the 
citizens  of  the  towns  in  dragging  the  Christians  before 
the  court.  In  Antioch,  for  example,  where  the  enmity 
between  those  two  sects  was  most  bitter,  in  all  probabil¬ 
ity,  the  Jews,  like  the  pagans,  demanded  the  trial  and 
execution  of  Polycarp.  They  are  said  to  have  fed  with 
great  eagerness  the  stake  upon  which  the  bishop  was 
burned. 

Still,  not  everywhere  was  the  strife  marked  with  such 


60 


bloody  manifestations.  The  controversy  was  always  very 
lively,  yet  it  must  be  said  it  was  not  conducted  with  equal 
weapons.  The  Bible  was  their  common  arsenal,  but  the 
Christian  teachers  had  but  a  scant  knowledge  of  it.  They 
did  not  know  Hebrew  and  used  the  Septuagint  version, 
which  they  interpreted  very  freely,  often  relying,  in  sup¬ 
port  of  their  dogma,  upon  passages  interpolated  into  the 
Septuagint  by  falsifiers  for  the  good  of  the  cause.  The 
Greek-speaking  Jews  did  not  hesitate  to  do  the  same,  so 
that  the  Septuagint,  a  bad  translation  as  it  was,  full  of 
absurdities,  became  available  for  any  purpose.  The  Jews 
undertook  first  to  place  in  the  hands  of  their  faithful  a 
purified  text,  which  gave  birth  to  a  scrupulous  and  lit¬ 
eral  Greek  translation  by  the  proselyte  Aquila,  friend  and 
disciple  of  Rabbi  Akiba.  It  was  only  later  that  the  same 
need  was  felt  by  the  Christians,  and  Origen  brought 
forth  his  Hexapla,  which  embodied,  however,  Aquila’s 
version. 

It  was  a  matter  of  necessity  with  the  Christian  apolo¬ 
gists  who  were  plainly  at  a  disadvantage,  as  compared 
with  the  Rabbinists,  and  it  was  felt  by  Origen  himself 
in  his  debate  on  the  Trinity  with  Rabbi  Simlai.  These 
debates  between  Jewish  and  Christian  teachers  were  not 
infrequent;  in  Cæsarea,  e.  g Rabbi  Abbahu  debated 
with  the  physician  Jacob  the  Minæan,  on  the  Ascension. 

These  controversies,  which  continued  through  long 
centuries,  were  not  always  courteous.  Simultaneously 
with  touching  legends  concerning  Jesus,  scandalous  sto¬ 
ries  were  invented.  To  humiliate  their  enemies,  the 
Jews  attacked  him  of  whom  the  former  made  their  God, 
and  to  the  deification  of  Jesus  they  opposed  the  stories 


61 


of  the  soldier  Pantherus,  of  abandoned  Mary  ;  these  were 
taken  np  by  philosophers  hostile  to  Christianity,  and 
Origen  refuted  them  in  his  Contra  Celsum ,  meeting 
abuse  with  abuse. 

Amidst  these  battles  was  born  a  theological  anti- 
Judaism,  purely  ideological,  which  consisted  in  rejecting 
as  bad  or  worthless  anything  coming  from  Israel.  This 
sentiment  is  evidenced  by  Tertullian’s  De  Adversus  Iu~ 
daeos.  In  that  work  the  fiery  African  attacked  circumci¬ 
sion,  which,  he  said,  brought  no  salvation,  but  was  a 
simple  sign  for  distinguishing  Israel;  when  Messiah 
would  come  he  would  substitute  spiritual  for  bodily  cir¬ 
cumcision;  he  attacked  the  Sabbath,  the  temporal  Sab¬ 
bath,  to  which  he  opposed  the  eternal  Sabbath. 

But  this  special  anti- Judaism,  which  we  find  again  in 
Octavius ,  by  Minucius  Felix;  in  De  Catholicae  Ecclesiae 
Unitate,  by  Cyprian  of  Carthage;  in  Instructiones  Ad¬ 
versus  Gentium  Deos ,  by  the  poet  Commodian,  and  in 
Divinae  Institution  es, ,  by  Lactantius,  was  mixed  with  the 
desire  to  convince  the  Jews  of  the  truth  of  the  Christian 
religion,  of  the  soundness  of  its  beliefs,  its  dogmas  and 
principles  ;  hence  the  ambition  to  make  proselytes  among 
them.  This  anti -Judaism  crossed  with  the  efforts  which 
the  Church  was  making  to  arrive  at  universality,  and 
during  the  first  three  centuries  remained  purely  theoret¬ 
ical.  We  shall  further  see  how,  since  Constantine  and 
the  triumph  of  the  Church,  this  anti- J udaism  was  trans¬ 
formed  and  more  precisely  defined. 


62 


CHAPTER  I  V. 

ANTISEMITISM  FROM  CONSTANTINE  TO  THE  EIGHTH 

CENTURY. 

The  Church  Triumphani. — The  Decadence  of  Judaism. 
— The  Passover  and  the  Judaizing  Heresies. — The 
Council  of  Nicaea. — Transformation  of  Theological 
Anti- J udaism. — Conclusion  of  Apologetics. — The 
Anti- Judaism  of  the  Fathers  and  Clergy. — Abuse. 
— Hosius,  Pope  Sylvester,  Eusebius  of  Cæsarea, 
Gregory  of  Nyssa  and  St.  Augustine. — St.  Ambrose, 
St.  Jerome,  and  St.  Cyril  of  Jerusalem. — St.  John 
Chrysostom. — Ecclesiastical  Writers. — The  Edict 
of  Milan  and  the  Jews. — Jewish  and  Christian  Pros- 
elytism. — The  Jews,  the  Church,  and  the  Christian 
Emperors. — Influence  of  the  Church  upon  Imperial 
Legislation. — Roman  Laws. — Vexatious  Treatment 
of  the  Jews. — Popular  Movements. — The  Defense 
of  the  J ews.  Their  Revolts. — Isaac  of  Sepphoris  and 
Natrona. — Benjamin  of  Tiberias  and  the  Conquest 
of  Palestine. — Julian  the  Apostate  and  the  Jewish 
Nationality. — The  Jews  among  the  Nations. — Anti- 
Judaism  Becomes  General. — In  Persia. — The  Magi, 
the  Jewish  Teachers  and  Jewish  Academies. — In 
Arabia. — Influence  of  the  Jews  in  Yemen. — Vic¬ 
tory  of  Mohammedanism  and  Persecution  of  the 
Jews. — Spain  and  the  Visigothic  Laws. — The  Bur¬ 
gundians. — The  Franks  and  Roman  Legislation. — 


63 


Canon  Law,  the  Councils,  and  Judaism. — The  Con¬ 
dition  and  Attitude  of  the  Jews. — Catholicism. 

For  three  centuries  the  Church  had  to  contend  against 
those  with  whom  the  greatness  of  Rome  was  inseparable 
from  the  secular  worship  of  the  Gods.  Still,  the  resist¬ 
ance  of  the  civil  authorities,  of  the  priests  and  philoso¬ 
phers,  could  not  arrest  the  march  of  the  Church  ;  perse¬ 
cutions,  hatred,  hostility  enhanced  its  power  of  propa¬ 
ganda  ;  it  addressed  itself  to  those  whose  spirit  was  troub¬ 
led,  whose  conscience  was  vacillating,  and  to  them  it 
brought  an  ideal  and  that  moral  satisfaction  which  they 
lacked.  Moreover,  at  that  hour  when  the  Roman  Empire 
was  rending  all  over,  when  Rome,  having  abdicated  all 
power  and  authority,  received  its  Caesars  from  the  hands 
of  the  legions,  and  competitors  for  the  purple  bobbed  up 
in  every  nook  of  the  provinces,  the  Catholic  Church  of¬ 
fered  to  that  expiring  world  the  unity  it  was  seeking. 

Yet,  while  offering  intellectual  unity  to  the  world,  the 
Church  at  the  same  time  was  ruining  its  institutions, 
customs  and  manners.  In  fact,  at  Rome,  as  well  as  in 
the  Empire,  all  public  functions  were  at  once  civil  and 
religious,  the  magistrate,  the  procurator,  the  dux  being 
invested  with  priestly  functions;  no  public  act  was  per¬ 
formed  without  rites  ;  the  government  was,  in  a  manner, 
theocratic  ;  this  ultimately  came  to  be  symbolized  in  the 
worship  of  the  Emperor.  All  those  who  wanted  to  with¬ 
draw  from  that  worship  were  held  to  be  enemies  of 
Caesar  and  the  Empire;  they  were  considered  bad  citi¬ 
zens.  This  sentiment  explains  the  Roman  dislike  of 
Oriental  religions  and  of  the  Jews;  it  explains  the  meas¬ 
ures  adopted  against  the  worshippers  of  Yahweh,  and 


G4 


still  more  the  severity  shown  towards  the  worshippers  of 
Mithra,  of  Sabazius  and  particularly  towards  the  Chris¬ 
tians,  for  the  latter  were  not  foreigners  like  the  J ews,  but 
rebel  citizens. 

The  triumph  of  Christianity  was  brought  about  by 
political  considerations,  and  so,  to  make  its  victory  and 
domination  lasting,  it  was  obliged  to  adopt  many  of  the 
ceremonial  observances  of  ancientRome.  When  the  Chris¬ 
tians  had  increased  in  numbers,  and  formed  a  consider¬ 
able  party,  they  were  saved  and  could  see  the  dawn  of 
victory  glimmer,  for  now  a  pretender  to  the  throne  could 
find  support  among  them  and  use  their  services  to  so¬ 
lidify  his  authority.  So  it  happened  with  Constantine, 
and  Constantius,  perhaps,  foresaw  it  when  he  com¬ 
manded  the  Gallic  legions.  The  victorious  church  suc¬ 
ceeded  to  Rome.  She  inherited  its  haughtiness,  its  ex¬ 
clusiveness,  its  pride,  and  almost  without  any  transition 
period  the  persecuted  turned  persecutrix,  wielding  the 
power  by  which  she  had  been  fought,  holding  the  consu¬ 
lar  fasces  and  hatchet  and  commanding  the  legionaries. 

While  Jesus  was  taking  possession  of  the  superb  city 
and  his  universal  reign  was  commencing,  Judaism  was 
in  agony  in  Palestine  ;  the  teachers  of  Tiberias  were  pow¬ 
erless  to  hold  the  young  Judeans  and  the  “illustrious, 
most  glorious,  right  reverend”  patriarch  had  but  the 
shadow  of  authority.  The  flourishing  Jewish  schools 
were  in  Babylonia  ;  the  centre  of  Israel’s  intellectual  life 
was  transferred  thither;  still  wherever  Christianity  en¬ 
deavored  to  extend  its  influence  it  had  to  reckon  and  to 
contend  with  the  influence  of  Judaism,  though  since  the 
close  of  the  third  century  the  latter  was  of  little  impor- 


65 


tance,  at  least  directly.  Indeed,  at  that  time  the  Juda- 
izing  heresies  were  nearly  extinct.  The  Nazarenes,  those 
circumcised  Christians  attached  to  the  old  law,  who  are 
mentioned  by  St.  Jerome  and  St.  Epiphanius,  were  re¬ 
duced  to  a  handful  of  meek  believers,  who  had  found 
refuge  at  Berea  (Alep),  at  Kokabe  in  Batanea,  and  at 
Pella,  in  the  Decapolis.  They  spoke  the  Syro-Chaldaic 
language;  a  remnant  of  the  primitive  Church  of  Jerusa¬ 
lem,  they  no  longer  exerted  any  influence,  swamped’  as 
they  were  amidst  Greek-speaking  churches. 

Still,  though  Ebionism  was  dying  out,  Judaizing  con¬ 
tinued;  the  Christians  attended  the  synagogues,  cele¬ 
brated  the  Jewish  holidays,  and  the  contentions  over  the 
Passover  were  still  on.  A  large  faction  in  the  churches  of 
the  Orient  insisted  upon  celebrating  the  Passover  at  the 
same  time  as  the  Jews.  It  required  the  action  of  the 
Mcaen  Council  to  free  Christianity  of  this  last  and  weak 
bond  by  which  it  had  still  been  tied  to  its  cradle.  After 
the  Synod  all  was  over  between  the  Church  and  the  Tem¬ 
ple,  officially,  and  from  the  orthodox  standpoint,  at  least  ; 
it  required,  however,  the  action  of  further  councils  to 
prevent  the  faithful  from  conforming  to  the  old  usage, 
and  it  was  not  until  341  A.  D.,  when  the  Council  of  An¬ 
tioch  had  excommunicated  the  Quartodecimans  that 
unity  of  the  celebration  of  the  Easter  was  effected. 

Since  the  Church  had  become  armed,  anti-Judaism 
underwent  a  transformation.  Purely  theological  in  the 
beginning,  confined  to  arguments  and  controversies,  it 
defined  itself  and  became  harsher,  more  severe  and  ag¬ 
gressive.  Beside  writings,  laws  appeared  ;  the  enactment 
of  laws  resulted  in  popular  manifestations.  The  writ- 


66  — 


ings  themselves  underwent  a  change.  Throughout  the 
centuries  of  persecution,  apologetics  had  flourished,  and 
a  vast  literature  had  come  into  being,  born  of  the  need 
felt  by  the  Christians  to  convince  their  adversaries.  They 
addressed  themselves  now  to  the  Jews,  now  to  the  pagans, 
now  to  the  emperors,  and  all  of  them,  Justin,  Athenag- 
oras,  Tatian,  Aristo  of  Pella,  Melito,  endeavored  to  prove 
to  Caesar  that  their  doctrines  were  not  dangerous  to  the 
public  weal;  that  even  without  sacrificing  to  the  gods, 
they  could  be  loyal  subjects,  as  obedient  as  the  pagans 
and  morally  superior.  They  argued  with  the  J ews  that  it 
was  they,  the  Christians,  that  were  the  only  faithful  to 
tradition,  for  they  fulfilled  the  prophecies  and  the  least 
details  of  their  dogmas  were  foreseen  and  announced  by 
the  Scriptures.  Triumphant  Christianity  was  no  longer 
in  need  of  apologists;  Caesar  had  been  converted  and 
Cyril  of  Alexandria,  the  author  of  a  book  against  Julian 
the  Apostate,  was  the  last  of  the  apologists.  As  regards 
Israel,  the  Christians  persisted,  even  to  our  own  day,  in 
demonstrating  to  them  their  stubbornness  ;  it  was  done  in 
a  less  insidious  and  less  convincing  manner  ;  they  spoke 
as  masters,  and  from  the  middle  of  the  fifth  century, 
apologetics  proper  ceased,  reappearing  only  much  later 
considerably  modified  and  transformed. 

They  no  longer  tried  to  win  over  the  Jews  to  Christ; 
indeed,  a  few  years  sufficed  to  show  to  the  theologians  the 
futility  of  their  efforts,  and  the  effect  of  their  reasoning, 
based  most  frequently  upon  a  fantastic  exegesis  or  a  few 
absurdities  of  the  Alexandrian  translation  of  the  Bible, 
was  lost  on  these  stubborn  men,  who  listened  only  to  their 
own  teachers  and  clung  the  stronger  to  their  faith  the 


67 


more  it  was  despised.  To  arguments  was  added  insult; 
the  Jew  was  regarded  less  as  a  possible  Christian  than 
as  an  unrepenting  deicide.  They  denounced  those  men, 
whose  persistence  was  so  shocking  and  whose  very  pres¬ 
ence  marred  the  complete  triumph  of  the  Church.  Pains 
were  taken  to  forget  the  Jewish  origin  of  Jesus  and  the 
Apostles  ;  to  forget  that  Christianity  had  grown  in  the 
shade  of  the  Synagogue.  This  oblivion  perpetuated  it¬ 
self,  and  to-day  who  in  all  Christendom  would  acknowl¬ 
edge  that  he  bows  to  a  poor  Jew  and  a  humble  Jewess  of 
Galilee  ? 

The  Fathers,  the  bishops,  the  priests,  who  had  to  con¬ 
tend  against  the  Jews,  treated  them  very  badly.  Hosius 
in  Spain;  Pope  Sylvester;  Paul,  bishop  of  Constantine; 
Eusebius  of  Cæsarea,1  call  them  “a  perverse,  dangerous 
and  criminal  sect.” 

Some,  like  Gregory  of  Eyssa,1  remain  on  dogmatic 
P.  G.,  XLVI. 

ground,  and  merely  reproach  the  Jews  ±or  being  infidels, 
who  refuse  to  accept  the  testimony  of  Moses  and  the 
prophets  on  the  Trinity  and  Incarnation.  St.  Augus¬ 
tine2  is  more  vehement.  Irritated  by  the  objections  of  the 
Talmudists  he  brands  them  as  falsifiers,  and  declares  that 
one  need  seek  no  religion  in  the  blindness  of  the  Jews, 
and  that  Judaism  may  serve  only  as  a  term  of  compari¬ 
son  to  demonstrate  the  beauty  of  Christianity.  St.  Am¬ 
brose1  attacked  them  from  another  side  ;  he  took  up  anew 
the  charges  of  the  ancient  world,  those  which  had  been 

1  Demonstratio  Evangelica. 

1 Testimonium  adversus  Judaeos  ex  Tetere  Testamento ,  Migne, 

2  Oratio  adversus  Judaeos ,  Migne,  P.  L.  XLII, 

1  De  Tolia.  Migne,  P.  L.  XIV. 


68 


used  against  the  first  Christians,  and  accused  the  Jews 
of  despising  the  laws  of  Rome.  St.  Jerome2  claimed 
that  an  impure  spirit  had  seized  the  Jews.  Having 
learned  Hebrew  in  the  schools  of  the  rabbis,  he  said,  re¬ 
ferring  doubtless  to  the  curses  pronounced  against  the 
Mineans  and  distorting  their  meaning:  “The  Jews  must 
be  hated,  for  they  daily  insult  J esus  Christ  in  their  syna¬ 
gogues”;  and  St.  Cyril  of  Jerusalem* 1  abused  the  Jewish 
patriarchs,  claiming  that  they  were  a  low  race. 

We  find  all  these  theological  and  polemical  attacks 
combined  in  the  six  sermons  delivered  at  Antioch,  by 
St.  J ohn  Chrysostom1  against  the  J ews  ;  an  examination 
of  those  homilies  will  give  us  an  understanding  of  the 
methods  of  discussion,  as  well  as  the  reciprocal  attitude 
of  Christians  and  Jews  and  their  mutual  relations. 

The  Jews,  says  Chrysostom  in  the  first  of  his  sermons, 
are  ignoramuses,  who  lack  all  understanding  of  their  own 
law,  and  are  consequently  impious.  They  are  wretches, 
dogs,  bull-headed  ;  their  people  are  like  a  herd  of  brutes, 
like  wild  beasts.  They  have  driven  Christ  away,  there¬ 
fore  they  are  capable  of  evil  only.  Their  synagogues 
may  be  likened  to  playhouses,  they  are  dens  of  brigands, 
the  abode  of  Satan.  Being  obliged  to  admit  that  the 
Jews  are  not  ignorant  of  the  Father,  he  adds  that  this 
is  not  enough,  since  they  have  crucified  the  Son  and  re¬ 
ject  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  that  their  souls  are  the  abode 
of  the  devil.  Therefore  they  must  be  mistrusted;  the 
Jewish  disease  must  be  guarded  against.  And  Chrysos- 

2  Ep.  CLI,  Quaest.  10,  Migne,  P.  L.  XXII. 

1  Ep.  CLI,  Quaest,  10,  Migne,  P.  G.,  XXXIII. 

1  Adversus  Judaeos,  10,  Migne,  P.  G.,  XLVIII. 


69 


tom  thus  apostrophizes  his  faithful:  Do  not  frequent, 
the  synagogues,  do  not  observe  the  Sabbath,  the  fast-days 
and  other  Jewish  rites.  If  you  meet  the  Judaizing,  warn 
them  of  the  peril,  for  you  are  the  army  of  Christ  ;  let  not 
yourselves  be  seduced;  it  would  be  sheer  folly.  What 
will  you  gain  in  this  den  of  men  who  deny  Moses  and 
the  prophets?  If  the  Jewish  teachings  excite  your  ad¬ 
miration,  you  must  find  the  Christian  teachings  false. 

In  the  second  sermon  these  diatribes  are  resumed; 
Chrysostom  appears  in  it  much  worried  over  the  influ¬ 
ence  exerted  by  the  Jews.  “Our  sheep, ”  he  exclaims, 
“are  surrounded  by  Jewish  wolves,”  and  he  reiterates 
the  warning:  Avoid  them;  avoid  their  impiety;  it  is 
not  insignificant  controversies  that  separate  us  from 
them,  but  the  death  of  Christ.  If  you  think  that  Juda¬ 
ism  is  true,  leave  the  Church;  if  not,  quit  Judaism.  Do 
you  not  know  that  the  Jews  offer  sacrifices  everywhere  on 
earth,  except  in  the  onty  place  where  sacrifice  is  valid, 
i.  e.,  at  Jerusalem?  Are  you  not  aware  that  it  is  only 
there  that  they  can  celebrate  Passover,  as  the  law  says 
(Deuter.  xii)  ?  Therefore  do  not  conform  to  their  de¬ 
lusive  Passover. 

The  other  four  sermons  are  chiefly  theological.  Avail¬ 
ing  himself  of  the  invectives  of  the  prophets,  Chrysos¬ 
tom  calls  the  Jews  thieves,  impure,  debauchees,  rapa¬ 
cious,  misers,  crafty,  oppressors  of  the  poor;  they  have 
filled  the  measure  of  their  crimes  by  immolating  Jesus. 
He  does  not  content  himself  with  all  that.  He  advances 
arguments  upon  controversies  which  must  have  been 
very  lively  at  Antioch.  He  defends  the  Church;  he 
shows  that  Israel  is  dispersed  in  consequence  of  the  death 


70 


of  Christ  ;  he  draws  from  the  prophets  and  the  stories  of 
the  Bible  proofs  of  the  divinity  of  Jesus,  and  he  recom¬ 
mends  to  his  flock  to  stay  away  from  the  sermons  of  those 
Jews  who  call  the  cross  an  abomination  and  whose  re¬ 
ligion  is  null  and  useless  to  those  who  know  the  true 
faith.  In  short,  says  he  in  conclusion,  it  is  absurd  to 
consort  with  men  who  have  treated  God  with  such  indig¬ 
nity  and  at  the  same  time  to  worship  the  Crucified. 

These  homilies  of  Chrysostom  are  characteristic  and 
valuable.  One  finds  there  already  the  policy  which  the 
Christian  preachers  were  to  pursue  throughout  the  ages 
to  follow  ;  that  mixture  of  argument  and  apostrophizing, 
of  suasion  and  abuse,  which  has  remained  peculiar  to 
anti- Jewish  preaching.  Especially  worthy  of  notice  is 
the  part  of  the  clergy  in  the  development  of  anti- Juda¬ 
ism — originally  religious  anti-Judaism,  for  social  anti- 
Judaism  arose  much  later  in  Christian  society.  These 
sermons  portray,  in  a  live  picture,  the  relations  between 
Judaism  and  Christianity  in  the  fourth  century;  these 
relations  continued  for  a  long  time,  until  about  the  ninth 
century.  The  J ews  had  not  arrived  yet  at  that  exclusive 
conception  of  their  individuality  and  their  nationality 
which  was  the  work  of  the  Talmudists.  Their  mode  of 
life  did  not  differ  externally  from  that  of  other  nations 
in  whose  midst  they  lived;  they  generally  took  part  in 
public  affairs,  in  Asia  Minor,  as  well  as  in  Italy;  in  Gaul, 
as  well  as  in  Spain.  Coming  into  daily  contact  with  the 
Christians,  they  exerted  an  influence  upon  them,  and  as 
they  had  not  as  yet  shut  themselves  up  in  that  sullen  iso¬ 
lation  which  their  teachers  later  preached,  they  attracted 
to  their  worship  many  of  those  who  were  undecided  and 


71 


irresolute.  Their  proselytic  ardor  was  not  dead;  they 
were  not  conscious  of  the  fact  that  they  had  forever  lost 
their  moral' power  over  the  world,  and  they  struggled  on. 
They  persuaded  pagans  and  Christians  to  Judaize,  and 
they  found  followers;  if  need  be  they  would  make  con¬ 
verts  by  force;  they  did  not  hesitate  to  circumcise  their 
slaves.  They  were  the  only  foes  the  Church  had  to  face, 
for  paganism  was  quietly  passing  away,  leaving  in  the 
souls  but  legendary  survivals,  which  have  not  entirely 
died  out  even  to  this  day.  If  paganism,  through  its  last 
philosophers  and  poets,  still  opposed  the  diffusion  of 
Christianity,  it  no  longer  sought,  since  the  fourth  cen¬ 
tury,  to  regain  those  whom  Jesus  held  by  his  bonds.  The 
Jews,  however,  had  not  given  up;  they  deemed  them¬ 
selves  in  possession  of  the  true  religion,  upon  as  good  a 
title  as  the  Christians,  and  in  the  eyes  of  the  people  their 
assertion  had  the  attraction  flowing  from  unflinching 
convictions. 

In  the  morning  of  its  triumph  the  Church  as  yet  did 
not  hold  that  universal  ascendancy  which  it  gained  later  ; 
it  was  still  weak,  though  powerful  ;  but  those  who  di¬ 
rected  it  aspired  to  universality,  and  they  could  not  help 
considering  the  Jews  as  their  worst  adversaries  ;  they 
had  to  strain  themselves  to  the  utmost  to  weaken  Jewish 
propaganda  and  proselytism.  In  this  the  Fathers  fol¬ 
lowed  a  secular  tradition  ;  upon  this  battle  ground  they 
are  unanimous,  and  there  are  legions  of  theologians,  his¬ 
torians  and  writers  who  think  and  write  of  the  Jews  the 
same  as  Chrysostom  :  Epiphanius,  Diodorus  of  Tarsus, 
Theodore  of  Mopsuestia,  Theodoret  of  Cyprus,  Cosmas 
Indicopleustes,  Athanasius  the  Sinaite,  Synesius,  among 


72 


the  Greeks;  Hilarius  of  Poitiers,  Prudentius,  Paulus 
Orosius,  Sulpicius  Severus,  Gennadius,  Yenantius  For- 
tunatus,  Isidore  of  Seville,  among  the  Latins. 

However,  after  the  edict  of  Milan,  anti- Judaism  could 
no  longer  confine  itself  to  oral  or  written  controversies: 
it  was  no  longer  a  quarrel  between  two  sects  equally  detest¬ 
ed  or  despised.  Before  his  conversion,  Constantine,  who 
originally  declined  to  grant  any  exclusive  privileges  to 
Christians,  accorded,  by  the  edict  of  tolerance,  to  every 
one  the  right  to  observe  the  religion  of  his  choice.  The 
J ews  were  thus  put  on  an  equal  footing  with  the  Chris¬ 
tians;  the  pagan  pontiffs,  the  priests  of  Jesus,  the  patri¬ 
archs  and  teachers  of  Israel  enjoyed  the  same  favor  and 
were  exempt  from  municipal  taxes.  But  in  323,  after  the 
defeat  and  death  of  Licinius,  who  had  reigned  in  the 
Orient,  Constantine,  the  victor  and  lord  over  the  Empire, 
supported  by  all  the  Christians  of  his  states,  showed  them 
marked  preference.  He  made  them  his  great  dignitaries, 
his  councillors,  his  generals,  and  thenceforth  the  Church 
had  the  imperial  power  at  its  disposal  to  build  up  its 
dominion.  The  first  use  it  made  of  this  authority  was 
to  persecute  those  who  were  hostile  to  the  Church;  it 
found  Constantine  quite  obedient  to  its  wishes.  On  the 
one  hand,  the  emperor  prohibited  divination  and  sacri¬ 
fices,  closed  the  temples,  ordered  the  gold  and  silver  stat¬ 
ues  of  the  gods  to  be  melted  for  the  embellishment  of  the 
churches;  on  the  other  hand,  he  consented  to  repress 
Jewish  proselytism  and  revived  an  ancient  Roman  law 
which  prohibited  the  Jews  from  circumcising  their 
slaves;  at  the  same  time  he  deprived  them  of  many  of 
their  former  privileges  and  barred  them  from  J erusalem, 


73 


except  on  the  anniversary  of  the  destruction  of  the  Tem¬ 
ple,  and  that  upon  payment  of  a  special  tax  in  silver. 
Thus,  by  aggravating  the  burdens  which  were  oppressing 
the  Jews,  Constantine  favored  Christian  proselytism, 
and  the  preachers  were  not  slow  to  represent  to  the 
J ews  the  advantages  baptism  would  bring.  To  encourage 
the  hesitating,  who  were  held  back  from  apostasy  by  the 
fear  of  revenge  and  ill-treatment  from  their  coreligion¬ 
ists,  the  emperor  promulgated  a  law  which  condemned 
to  the  stake  those  J  ews  who  persecuted  their  apostates  by 
stoning.1 

Still,  in  spite  of  his  hostility  to  the  Jews,  perhaps  fac¬ 
titious,  since  the  authenticity  of  the  letter  written  in  a 
violent  language  and  attributed  to  him  by  Eusebius2 
cannot  be  vouched  for,  he  took  pains  to  protect  them 
against  the  attacks  of  their  own  renegades.  Under  his 
successors,  no  such  reservation  was  made.  The  Church 
was  now  all-powerful  with  the  emperors.  Catholicism 
became  the  established  religion,  the  Christian  worship 
was  the  official  worship,  the  importance  of  the  bishops 
increased  from  day  to  day,  as  well  as  their  influence. 
They  inculcated  upon  the  minds  of  the  emperors  those 
sentiments  with  which  they  were  inspired  themselves, 
and  while  their  anti- Judaism  manifested  itself  in  writ¬ 
ings,  imperial  anti-Judaism  found  expression  in  statutes. 
These  laws,  inspired  by  the  clergy,  were  directed  not 
only  against  the  Jews,  but  against  Christian  heretics  as 
well.  Indeed,  during  the  fourth  century,  so  fertile  in 


1  Codex  Justinianeus,  1.  I,  tit.  viii,  3. 

2  Eusebius,  Vita  Constantini,  III,  18,  20. 


74 


heresies,  the  orthodox  themselves  were  at  times  disturbed 
when  heretical  theologians  led  the  emperors. 

Of  these  laws,  all  of  which  were  enacted  from  the 
fourth  to  the  seventh  century,  the  majority  are  directed 
against  Jewish  proselytism.  The  penal  statutes  directed 
against  those  who  circumcise  Christians  are  reaffirmed;1 
the  offense  is  made  punishable  by  exile  for  life  and  con¬ 
fiscation  of  property.  The  Jews  are  prohibited  from 
owning  Christian  slaves  ;x  they  are  not  allowed  to  marry 
Christians  ;  such  unions  are  treated  like  criminal  fornica¬ 
tion.2  Other  laws  encourage  Christian  propaganda  and 
proselytism  among  the  Jews,  either  directly — by  protect¬ 
ing  the  apostates1  and  enjoining  Jews  from  disinheriting 
their  converted  sons  and  grandsons2 — or  indirectly,  by 
vexatious  legislation  against  Jews.  Their  privileges 
were  curtailed.  It  was  decreed  that  the  moneys  which 
were  sent  by  the  Israelites  to  Palestine  should  be  paid 
into  the  imperial  treasury;3  they  were  debarred  from 
holding  public  office;4  they  were  assessed  with  hard  and 
oppressive  curial  taxes;5  they  were  practically  deprived 
of  their  special  tribunals.6  The  vexations  were  not  con¬ 
fined  to  that  ;  the  J ews  were  harassed  even  in  the  observ¬ 
ance  of  their  religion  ;  the  law  undertook  to  regulate  the 


1  Codex  Justinianeus,  1.  1,  tit.  IX,  1(5. 

1  Codex  Theodosianus,  1.  XVI,  tit.  VIII,  5. 

2  Codex  Justinianeus .,  1.  I.,  tit.  IX,  6. 

1  Cod,  Theod.,  b.  XVI,  tit.  viii,  8. 

2  Code  Theodosien,  1.  XVI,  iti.  VIII,  28. 

3  Codex  Justinianeus,  1.  1,  tic.  IX,  17  and  Cod,  Theod  os.,  1. 
XVI,  tit.  VIII,  14. 

4  Codex  Justinianeus,  i.  I.  tit.  IX,  18. 

5  Justinianus,  Novellae ,  45. 

0  Codex  Justinianeus,  1.  I.,  tit.  IX,  15. 


75 


manner  of  observing  the  Sabbath;7  they  were  ordered 
not  to  celebrate  their  Passover  before  Easter,  and  Jus¬ 
tinian  went  as  far  as  to  prohibit  them  from  reciting  the 
daily  prayer,  the  Schema ,  which  proclaimed  one  God,  as 
against  the  Trinity. 

Still,  notwithstanding  the  favorable  disposition  of 
Emperor  Constantine,  the  Church  was  not  given  a  free 
hand  in  everything.  While  restricting  the  religious  lib¬ 
erties  of  the  pagans  and  the  Jews,  he  was  obliged  to  act 
with  caution;  the  worshippers  of  the  gods  were  still  nu¬ 
merous  under  his  reign,  and  he  dared  not  provoke  dan¬ 
gerous  disturbances.  The  Jews  benefited  to  some  extent 
by  this  hesitation.  With  Constantius  everything 
changed.  Constantine,  who  was  baptized  only  on  his 
deathbed  by  Eusebius  of  Mcomedia,  was  a  skeptic  and 
a  politician,  who  used  Christianity  as  a  tool;  Constan¬ 
tius  was  an  orthodox,  as  fanatical  and  intolerant  as  the 
clergy  and  the  monks  of  his  day.  With  him,  the  Church 
became  dominant,  and  wielded  its  power  for  revenge;  it 
seems  the  Church  was  eager  to  make  its  erstwhile  perse¬ 
cutors  pay  dearly  for  all  it  had  suffered  at  their  hands. 
No  sooner  was  it  armed  than  it  forgot  its  most  ele¬ 
mentary  principles,  and  directed  the  secular  arm  against 
its  adversaries.  The  pagans  and  the  Jews  were  perse¬ 
cuted  with  utmost  severity;  those  who  offered  sacrifices 
to  Zeus,  as  well  as  those  who  worshipped  Jehovah,  were 
maltreated  :  anti- Judaism  went  together  with  anti-pa¬ 
ganism. 

The  Jewish  teachers  of  Judea  were  exiled,  they  were 

7  Codex  Justinianeus  1.  I.,  tit.  IX,  13,  and  Cod.  Theod.,  1. 
VIII,  tit.  IV,  8. 


—  76  — 

threatened  with  death  if  they  persisted  in  giving  in¬ 
struction,  they  were  compelled  to  flee  from  Palestine, 
while  in  other  provinces  of  the  empire  they  were  denied 
the  rights  of  Roman  citizenship.  While  the  Roman  le¬ 
gions,  on  expedition  against  King  Shabur  II.,  of  Persia, 
were  camping  in  Judea,  the  Jews  were  treated  like  in¬ 
habitants  of  a  conquered  country.  They  were  heavily 
taxed  ;  they  were  forced  to  bake  bread  for  the  soldiers  on 
Sabbath  and  on  holidays. 

In  the  cities,  monks  and  bishops  denounced  pagans 
and  Jews,  inciting  against  them  the  Christian  populace 
and  leading  fanatical  mobs  in  assaults  upon  temples  and 
synagogues.  Under  Theodosius  I.,  and  under  Arcadius, 
synagogues  were  burned  at  Rome  and  at  Callinicus,  in 
Mesopotamia.  Under  Theodosius  II,  at  Alexandria, 
St.  Cyril  stirred  up  the  mob,  hermits  invaded  the  city, 
massacred  all  the  J ews  and  pagans  they  met,  assassinated 
Hypathia,  plundered  s}magogues,  set  the  libraries  on 
fire,  defying  the  efforts  of  the  prefect  Orestes  whom  the 
emperor  later  disavowed.  At  Imnestar,  near  Antioch, 
Simon,  the  ascetic,  acts  likewise,  and  under  Zeno  similar 
scenes  are  enacted  at  Antioch.  A  fury  of  destruction 
takes  possession  of  the  Christians;  one  might  say,  they 
wish  to  destroy  all  traces  of  the  old  world  to  prepare  the 
sweet  reign  of  Christ. 

Still  the  Jews  did  not  behave  passively  in  the  face 
of  their  enemies,  they  had  not,  as  yet,  acquired  that 
stubborn  and  touching  resignation  which  became  their 
characteristic  later. 

To  the  vehement  discourses  of  the  priests  they  replied 
by  discourses,  to  acts  they  responded  by  acts;  to  Chris- 


77 


tian  proselytism  they  opposed  their  own  proselytism  and 
vowed  execration  on  their  apostates.  Violent  sermons 
were  preached  in  the  synagogues.  Jewish  preachers 
thundered  against  Edom,  i.  e.,  against  Rome,  the  Rome 
of  the  Caesars  which  had  become  the  Rome  of  Jesus,  and 
which  was  now  ravishing  the  faith  of  the  J ews  after  hav¬ 
ing  ravished  their  nationality.  They  did  not  content 
themselves  with  rhetorical  common-places,  they  excited 
their  brethren  to  revolt.  While  Gallus,  Constantius’s 
nephew,  governed  the  Oriental  provinces,  Isaac  of  Sep- 
phoris  raised  the  Judeans,  being  aided  in  his  under¬ 
taking  by  a  fearless  man,  Natrona,  whom  the  Romans 
called  Patricius.  “Natrona/’  exclaimed  Isaac,  “will  de¬ 
liver  us  from  Edom,  Mordecai  and  Esther  as  delivered 
us  from  the  Medes,  the  Hasmonæans  as  liberated  us 
from  the  Greeks.”  The  Jews  took  up  arms,  but  they 
were  severely  repressed  by  Gallus  and  his  general,  Ur- 
sicinus.  Women,  children  and  old  men  were  butchered, 
Tiberias  and  Lydda  were  half  destroyed,  Sepphoris  was 
razed  to  the  ground  and  the  catacombs  of  Tiberias  were 
filled  with  fugitives  who  were  hiding  for  months  to  es¬ 
cape  detection  and  death. 

Under  the  reign  of  Phocas  the  Jews  of  Antioch,  tired 
of  persecutions,  outrages  and  massacres,  one  day  rushed 
upon  the  Christians,  assassinated  the  patriarch  Anastas- 
ius  the  Sinaite,  and  took  possession  of  the  city.  Phocas. 
sent  against  them  an  army  with  Kotys  in  command,  the 
Jews  at  first  repelled  the  imperial  legions,  but  unable  to 
hold  out  against  large  enforcements  brought  to  Antioch, 
they  were  subdued  and  massacred,  maimed,  or  banished. 
Their  submission,  however,  was  merely  apparent;  they 


78 


were  awaiting  an  opportunity  to  renew  the  struggle; 
the  opportunity  soon  presented  itself/  When  Chosru 
II.,  king  of  Persia,  marched  against  the  Byzantine  em¬ 
pire,  to  avenge  his  son-in-law,  Mauritius,  whose  throne 
had  been  usurped  by  Phocas,  the  Jews  joined  the  king. 
Sharbarza  invaded  Asia  Minor,  disregarding  the  peace 
proposals  of  Heraclius,  who  had  just  dethroned  Phocas, 
and  he  saw  the  J ewish  warriors  of  Galilee  flock 
under  his  banners.  Benjamin  of  Tiberias  was  the 
soul  of  the  revolt;  he  armed  and  led  the  rebels.  The 
Jews  wanted  to  reconquer  Palestine  and  restore  it  to 
that  purity  which  to  them  had  been  polluted  by  the 
Christian  cult.  They  burned  the  churches,  sacked  J eru- 
salem,  destroyed  the  convents,  raising  on  their  way  all 
their  co-religionists,  and  joined  by  the  Israelites  of 
Damascus,  Southern  Palestine,  and  the  Isle  of  Cyprus, 
they  besieged  Tyre,  but  were  forced  to  raise  the  siege. 
For  fourteen  years  they  were  masters  of  Palestine,  and 
the  Christians  of  Palestine  were  in  great  numbers  con¬ 
verted  to  Judaism.  Heraclius  drew  them  away  from 
the  Persians,  who  had  not  lived  up  to  their  promise 
to  surrender  to  their  allies  the  holy  city  of  J erusalem  ; 
he  reached  an  understanding  with  Benjamin  of  Tiberias, 
promising  to  the  Jews  impunity  and  other  advantages; 
but  when  the  emperor  reconquered  his  provinces  from 
Chosru,  he  ordered,  at  the  instigation  of  monks  and  the 
Patriarch  Modestus,  to  massacre  those  with  whom  he  had 
treated.  As  he  had  pledged  his  oath  to  the  Jews  not  to 
molest  them,  Modestus  released  him  from  his  oath  and 
instituted,  doubtless  in  compensation,  a  fast  day  which 
the  Maronites  and  the  Copts  observed  for  a  long  time 


79 


thereafter.  Still  the  Jews  of  Judea  were  but  a  handful 
and  their  history  was  closed.  When  Julian  the  Apos¬ 
tate,  after  repealing  the  restrictive  laws  of  Constantine 
and  Constantius  against  the  Jews,  wanted  to  reconstruct 
the  Temple  of  Jerusalem,  the  foreign  Jewish  communi¬ 
ties  remained  deaf  to  the  imperial  appeal;  they  had 
become  estranged  from  their  national  cause,  at  least  di¬ 
rectly.  With  all  the  Jews  of  that  time,  the  restoration 
of  the  Kingdom  of  Judah  was  intimately  bound  with  the 
advent  of  Messiah  and  they  could  not  expect  it  from  a 
crowned  philosopher  ;  they  had  but  to  await  the  heavenly 
king  who  had  been  promised  them;  this  sentiment  per¬ 
sisted  throughout  the  ages.  With  the  death  of  the  last 
patriarch  Gamaliel  VI.,  the  phantom  of  royalty  and  of  a 
Jewish  nationality  passed  away  and  there  was  left  to 
Israel  but  the  chief  of  exile,  the  exilarch  of  Babylonia, 
who  disappeared  in  the  eleventh  century.  Still,  the 
Jews,  who  were  spread  over  the  world  and  organized  into 
powerful  and  wealthy  communities,  created  for  them¬ 
selves  numerous  fatherlands  to  which  they  were  bound 
by  their  interests.  This  attachment,  however,  was  not 
complete,  for  their  religion  kept  them  in  a  state  of  griev¬ 
ous  isolation;  mixed  with  all  nations,  they  suffered, 
whereever  precise  and  dogmatic  religions  were  establish¬ 
ed,  the  consequences  of  their  religious  non-conformity. 
Thus  we  see  anti- Judaism  flourish  not  only  in  Catholic 
countries,  but  also  in  Persia  and  Arabia. 

In  Persia  and  Babylonia,  the  Jews  lived  since  their 
captivity;  after  the  ruin  of  Jerusalem  many  more  sought 
refuge  in  that  admirable  and  fertile  country,  where  they 
were  given  land  m  farm  on  and  lived  happily  under  the 


80 


benevolent  rule  of  the  Arsacidae.  They  founded  schools 
at  Sora,  Nachardea  and  Pumbaditha,  and  made  numerous 
proselytes.  But  in  the  middle  of  the  third  century  the 
dynasty  of  the  Arsacidæ,  who  were  very  unpopular,  fell 
with  Artaban,  and  Ardashir  founded  the  dynasty  of  the 
Sassanides.  It  was  a  national  and  religious  movement. 
The  Neo-Persians  or  Guebres  execrated  the  Hellenizing 
Arsacidæ  who  had  abandoned  the  fire  worship.  The  tri¬ 
umph  of  Ardashir  was  the  triumph  of  the  Magi,  who 
raged  against  the  Hellenizing,  the  Christians  of  Edessa 
and  the  Jews,  for  the  anti- Judaism  of  the  Magi  was 
combined  with  anti-Christianity;  so  the  hostile  brothers 
were  persecuted  simultaneously,  still  the  Jews,  more 
feared  for  their  numbers  and  their  strength,  suffered 
more  in  consequence,  in  those  troublous  days.  However, 
those  persecutions  were  never  of  long  duration.  After 
suffering  oppression  at  the  end  of  the  third  century  from 
Shabur  II.,  who  led  away  70,000  Jewish  prisoners  from 
Armenia  to  Ispahan,  the  Israelites  were  for  many  years 
left  undisturbed  ;  but  in  the  sixth  and  the  seventh  century 
under  Yezdigerd  II.,  under  Pheroces,  and  under  Kobad, 
restrictive  measures  were  adopted  at  the  instigation  of 
the  Magi.  The  Jews  were  prohibited  from  celebrating 
the  Sabbath;  their  schools  were  closed,  the  Jewish  trib¬ 
unals  were  abolished.  During  the  reign  of  Kobad, 
Mazdak,  the  Magus,  was  the  originator  of  these  persecu¬ 
tions.  Mazdak,  the  founder  of  the  sect  of  Zendiks, 
preached  communism  and  deprived  the  Jews  and  Chris¬ 
tians  of  their  wives  and  property.  Under  the  leadership 
of  the  Exilarch  Mar  Zutra  II,  the  Jews  rebelled,  and, 
according  to  Persian  chronicles,  they  defeated  the  parti- 


81 


sans  of  the  Magus  and  founded  a  state,  whose  capital  was 
Mahuza,  a  city  inhabited  by  Persian  converts  to  Juda¬ 
ism.  This  state  existed  for  seven  years  until  Mar  Zutra 
was  defeated  and  killed. 

Since  then  the  Jews,  in  Persia,  witnessed  alternately 
peace  and  trouble;  happy  under  Chosroes  Nushirvan 
and  Chosru  II.,  oppressed  under  Hormisdas  IV.,  they 
ultimately  tired  of  their  precarious  situation,  and,  in 
concert  with  the  Christians  of  the  Sassanide  kingdom 
aided  Omar  to  capture  the  throne  of  Persia,  thus  con¬ 
tributing  to  the  triumph  of  Mohammed  and  the  Arabs. 

Still  the  Jews  had  little  to  rejoice  at  under  the  Mussul¬ 
man  yoke.  Their  first  settlement  in  Arabia,  disregarding 
the  legends  which  trace  it  as  far  back  as  Joshua  or  Saul, 
must  date  from  the  time  of  the  captivity,  or  of  the  de¬ 
struction  of  the  first  Temple.  The  original  nucleus  was 
swelled  by  fugitives  from  Judea,  who  reached  Arabia 
at  the  time  Palestine  was  conquered  by  the  Eomans.  In 
the  beginning  of  the  Christian  era  there  were  in  Arabia 
four  Jewish  tribes,  whose  centre  was  Medina. 

The  Jews  accomplished  a  moral  and  intellectual  con¬ 
quest  of  the  Arabs,  whom  they  converted  to  Judaism; 
at  least  they  made  them  adopt  its  rites.  The  kinship 
between  the  two  peoples  made  it  easy,  the  more  so  that, 
in  Yemen,  the  Jews  had  in  their  turn  adopted  Arabian 
customs,  which  differed  but  little  from  the  early  Jewish 
customs.  They  were  farmers,  shepherds  and  warriors,  at 
times  freebooters  and  poets.  Divided  into  small  groups, 
fighting  among  themselves  and  taking  part  in  the  quar¬ 
rels  which  divided  the  Arab  tribes,  they  at  the  same  time 


82 


founded  schools  at  Yathrib,  built  temples  and  propagated 
■their  religion  as  far  as  the  Ilimyarites  with  whom  their 
traders  were  in  regular  intercourse.  In  the  sixth  cen¬ 
tury,  under  the  reign  of  Zorah-Dhu-Nowas,  all  Yemen 
was  Jewish.  With  the  conversion  of  one  Arab  tribe  of 
Nedjran  to  Christianity,  difficulties  began;  they  were, 
however,  of  short  duration,  for  Christian  propaganda 
was  cut  short  in  Arabia  by  Mohammed.  Mohammed 
was  nursed  by  the  Jewish  spirit;  fleeing  from  Mecca, 
where  his  preaching  had  aroused  against  him  the  Arabs 
who  were  true  to  old  traditions,  he  sought  refuge  at 
Medina,  the  Jewish  city,  and  as  the  apostles  found  their 
first  adherents  among  the  Hellenic  proselytes,  so  he 
found  his  first  disciples  among  the  Judaizing  Arabs. 
Likewise,  the  same  religious  causes  embittered  Moham¬ 
med  and  Paul  to  hatred.  The  Jews  rebelled  against  the 
preaching  of  the  prophet,  they  heaped  ridicule  upon  him, 
and  Mohammed  who  had  until  then  been  inclined  to 
compromise  with  them,  violently  repudiated  them  and 
wrote  the  celebrated  Sura  of  the  Cow,  in  which  he  un¬ 
mercifully  inveigled  against  them.  When  the  prophet 
had  assembled  an  army  of  followers  he  no  longer  con¬ 
fined  himself  to  abuse,  he  marched  against  the  Jewish 
tribes,  vanquished  them,  and  decreed  that  “neither  Jews 
nor  Christians”  should  be  accepted  as  friends.  The 
Jews  rose  and  allied  themselves  to  those  Arabs  who 
rejected  the  new  doctrines,  but  the  extension  of  Moham¬ 
medanism  triumphed  over  them.  By  the  time  of  Mo¬ 
hammed’s  death  they  had  been  reduced  to  extreme  weak¬ 
ness;  Omar  completed  the  work.  He  drove  out  of  Chai- 
bar  and  Wadil  Kora  the  last  Jewish  tribes,  as  well  as 


83 


the  Christians  of  Dedjran,  for  Christians  and  Jews  alike 
polluted  the  sacred  soil  of  Islam. 

Wherever  Omar  carried  his  arms,  the  Jews,  oppressed 
by  reason  of  that  very  affinity  which  united  them  with 
the  Arabs,  favored  the  second  calif,  who  took  possession 
of  Persia  and  Palestine.  Omar  enacted  severe  laws 
against  the  Jews,  who  had  assisted  his  antagonist;  he 
subjected  them  to  restrictive  legislation,  prohibited  the 
erection  of  new  synagogues,  forced  them  to  wear  dress 
of  a  particular  color,  enjoined  them  from  riding  on 
horseback,  and  imposed  upon  them  a  personal  and  a 
land  tax.  Christians  were  treated  likewise.  Nevertheless 
the  Jews  enjoyed  greater  liberty  under  Arab  rule  than 
under  Christian  domination.  On  the  one  hand,  the  leg¬ 
islation  of  Omar  was  not  rigorously  enforced;  on  the 
other  hand,  aside  from  a  few  manifestations  of  fanatic¬ 
ism,  the  Mussulmanic  mass,  in  spite  of  religious  differ¬ 
ences,  showed  a  friendly  disposition  towards  them.  And 
later,  with  the  expansion  of  Islam,  the  Arabs  were  hailed 
as  liberators  by  all  the  Western  Jews. 

The  condition  of  the  Western  Jews  since  the  destruc¬ 
tion  of  the  fragile  Roman  empire  and  the  rush  of  bar¬ 
barians  upon  the  old  world,  was  subject  to  all  the  vicis¬ 
situdes  of  the  times.  The  Cæsars,  those  poor  Cæsars 
who  bore  the  names  of  Olybrius,  Glycerius,  Julius  Nepos, 
and  Romulus  Augustulus,  fell,  but  the  Roman  laws  re¬ 
mained  ;  and  if  for  short  periods  they  were  not  enforced 
against  the  Jews,  they  still  remained  in  effect,  and  the 
German  sovereigns  could  make  use  of  them  at  pleasure. 

From  the  fifth  to  the  eighth  century  the  fortunes  of  the 
Jews  wholly  depended  upon  religious  causes  which  were 


84 


external  to  them,  and  their  history  among  those  who 
were  called  barbarians  is  bound  with  the  history  of 
Arianism,  its  triumph  and  defeats.  So  long  as  the  Arian 
doctrine  predominated,  the  Jews  lived  in  a  state  of 
relative  welfare,  for  the  clergy  and  even  the  heretical 
government  were  busy  fighting  against  orthodoxy  and 
little  worried  about  the  Israelites,  who,  to  them,  were 
not  the  enemies  to  be  crushed.  Theodoric,  however,  was 
an  exception.  No  sooner  was  the  Ostrogoth  empire  estab¬ 
lished  than  the  king  prohibited  the  erection  of  syna¬ 
gogues  and  endeavored  to  convert  the  Jews.1  He  pro¬ 
tected  them,  however,  against  popular  outbreaks,  and 
compelled  the  Roman  Senate  to  rebuild  the  synagogues 
which  had  been  set  on  fire  by  the  Catholic  mobs  which 
rose  against  the  Arian  Theodoric. 

Still  in  Italy,  under  the  Byzantine  dominion  so  har¬ 
assing  to  them,  or  under  the  more  indifferent  Lombard 
rule,  for  the  Arian  and  the  pagan  Lombards  scarcely 
took  notice  of  the  existence  of  Israel, — the  Jews  were 
guarded  against  the  zeal  of  the  lower  clergy  and 
their  flocks  by  the  benevolence  of  the  pontificial  author¬ 
ity,  which,  from  the  earliest  days  of  its  power,  seems  to 
have  desired,  with  rare  exceptions,  to  preserve  the  syna¬ 
gogue  as  a  living  testimony  of  its  victory. 

In  Spain  the  condition  of  the  J ews  was  quite  different. 
From  time  immemorial  they  freely  settled  in  the 
peninsula;  their  numbers  increased  under  Vespasian, 
Titus  and  Hadrian,  during  the  Judean  wars  and  after 


1  His  course  was  probably  influenced  by  his  Minister  Cassio- 
dorus,  who  seems  to  have  had  scant  sympathy  for  the  Jews — he 
characterized  them  as  scorpions,  wild  asses,  dogs  and  unicorns. 


85 


the  dispersion;  they  owned  large  fortunes,  they  were 
wealthy,  powerful  and  respectable  and  exerted  a  great 
influence  upon  the  population  among  whom  they  lived. 
The  imprint  received  by  the  peoples  of  Spain  from 
Judaism,  endured  for  centuries,  and  that  land  was  the 
last  to  witness  once  more  the  contest,  with  almost  equal 
weapons,  between  the  Jewish  and  the  Christian  spirit. 
More  than  once  Spain  came  very  near  becoming  Jew¬ 
ish,  and  to  write  the  history  of  that  country  until  the 
fifteenth  century  means  to  write  the  history  of  the 
Jews,  for  they  were  intimately  connected  in  a  most  re¬ 
markable  way,  with  its  literature  and  intellectual,  na¬ 
tional,  moral  and  economic  development.  The  church, 
from  its  very  establishment  in  Spain,  contended  against 
J ewish  tendencies  and  proselytism,  and  it  was  only  after 
a  struggle  of  twelve  centuries  that  it  succeeded  in  com¬ 
pletely  extirpating  them. 

Until  the  sixth  century  the  Spanish  Jews  lived  in 
perfect  happiness.  They  were  as  happy  as  in  Babylonia, 
and  they  found  a  new  mother  country  in  Spain.  The 
Roman  laws  did  not  reach  them  there  and  the  ecclecias- 
tical  ordinances  of  the  Council  of  Elvira,  in  the  fourth 
century,  which  enjoined  Christians  from  intercourse 
with  them,  remained  a  dead  letter. 

The  Yisigothic  conquest  did  not  change  their  con¬ 
dition  and  the  Arian  Visigoths  confined  themselves  to 
persecuting  the  Catholics.  The  Jews  enjoyed  the  same 
civil  and  political  rights  as  the  conquerors;  moreover, 
the  Jews  joined  their  armies  and  the  Pyrenean  frontier 
was  guarded  by  Jewish  troops.  With  the  conversion  of 
King  Reccared  everything  changed;  the  triumphant 


86 


clergy  heaped  persecution  and  vexation  upon  the  Jews, 
and  from  that  hour  (589  A.  D.)  their  existence  became 
precarious.  They  were  gradually  brought  under  severe 
and  meddlesome  laws  which  were  drafted  by  the  numer¬ 
ous  councils,  held  during  that  period  in  Spain,  and 
were  enacted  by  the  Visigoth  kings.  These  successive 
laws  are  all  combined  in  the  edict  promulgated,  in  652, 
by  Receswinth;  they  were  re-enacted  and  aggravated  by 
Erwig,  who  had  them  approved  by  the  twelfth  council 
of  Toledo  (680).1  The  Jews  wrere  prohibited  from 
performing  the  right  of  circumcision  and  observing  the 
dietary  laws,  from  marrying  relatives  until  the  sixth 
generation,  from  reading  books  condemned  by  the  Chris- 
tion  religion.  They  were  not  allowed  to  testify  against 
Christians  or  to  maintain  an  action  in  court  against 
them,  or  to  hold  public  office.  These  laws  which  had 
been  enacted  one  by  one,  were  not  always  enforced  by 
the  Visigoth  lords,  who  were  independent,  in  a  way,  but 
the  clergy  doubled  their  efforts  to  procure  their  strict 
enforcement.  The  object  of  the  bishops  and  the  dig¬ 
nitaries  of  the  church  was  to  bring  about  the  conversion 
of  the  Jews  and  to  kill  the  spirit  of  Judaism  in  Spain 
and  the  secular  authority  lent  them  its  support.  From 
time  to  time  the  Jews  were  put  to  the  choice  between 
banishment  and  baptism;  from  that  epoch  dates  the 
origin  of  the  class  of  Marranos ,  those  Judaizing  Chris¬ 
tians  who  were  later  dispersed  by  the  Inquisition.  Un¬ 
til  the  eighth  century  the  Spanish  Jews  lived  in  that 
state  of  uncertainty  and  distress,  relying  only  upon  the 
transitory  good  will  of  some  kings  like  Swintila  and 


1  Leges  Visigoth,  L.  XII,  tit.  11,  5. 


87 


Vvamba.  They  were  liberated  only  by  Tarin,  the  Mo- 
hammadean  conqueror,  who  destroyed  the  Visigothic 
empire  with  the  aid  of  the  exiled  Jews  joining  his  army 
and  with  the  support  of  the  Jews  remaining  in  Spain. 
After  the  battle  of  Xeres  and  the  defeat  of  Roderick 
(711),  the  Jews  breathed  again. 

About  the  same  epoch  a  better  era  dawned  for  them 
in  France.  They  had  established  colonies  in  Gaul 
in  the  days  of  the  Roman  republic,  or  of  Cæsar,  and 
they  prospered,  benefiting  by  their  privileges  of  Roman 
citizenship.  The  arrival  of  the  Burgundians  and  Franks 
did  not  change  their  condition,  and  the  invaders  accord¬ 
ed  them  the  same  treatment  as  the  Gauls.  Their  history 
was  subject  to  the  same  fluctuations  and  rytlims  as  in 
Italy  and  Spain.  Free  under  pagan  or  Arian  dominion, 
they  were  persecuted  as  soon  as  orthodoxy  became  domi¬ 
nant.  Sigismund,  king  of  the  Burgundians,  after  his  con¬ 
version  to  Catholicism  enacted  laws  against  them  which 
were  confirmed  by  his  successors.1  The  Franks,  being 
ignorant  of  the  very  existence  of  the  Jews,  were  wholly 
guided  by  the  bishops,  and  after  Clovis  they  naturally 
began  to  apply  to  the  Jews  the  provisions  of  the  Theo- 
dosian  Code.  These  provisions  were  aggravated  and 
complicated  by  ecclesiastical  authority  which  left  to  the 
secular  power  the  duty  of  enforcing  and  compelling  the 
observance  of  its  decrees.  From  the  fifth  to  the  eighth 
century  that  part  of  the  canon  law  relating  to  the  Jews 
was  worked  out  in  Gaul.  The  laws  were  formulated  by 
the  councils  and  approved  by  the  edicts  of  the  Merovin¬ 
gian  kings. 


1  Lex  Burgundionum ,  tit.  XV,  1,  2,  3. 


88 


The  chief  concern  of  the  church,  during  those  three 
centuries,  seems  to  have  been  to  separate  the  J ews 
from  the  Christians,  to  prevent  Judaizing  among  the 
faithful  and  to  check  Israelite  proselytism.  This  leg¬ 
islation  which  had,  towards  the  eighth  century,  be¬ 
come  extremely  severe  in  dealing  with  the  Jews  and  the 
Judaizing,  was  not  enacted  at  one  stroke;  beginning  with 
the  council  of  Yannes,  of  the  year  465,  the  synods 
first  confined  themselves  to  platonic  injunctions.  The 
clergy  at  that  epoch  had  but  very  scant  authority  and 
could  inflict  no  penalties;  it  was  not  before  the  sixth 
century  that  the  support  of  the  Frank  chiefs  enabled 
it  to  enact  penal  legislation,  which  originally  applied 
only  to  clerical  offenders  against  the  decisions  of  the 
councils,  but  later  was  extended  to  laymen.  These  can¬ 
onical  penalties,  however,  comprising  excommunication 
and,  for  priests,  eventually  corporal  punishment,  con¬ 
templated  only  the  faithful;  as  to  the  Jews,  the  synods 
took  no  punitive  measures  against  them,  which  has  en¬ 
abled  many  writers  to  claim  with  apparent  justification 
that  the  church  maintained  a  benevolent  attitude  toward 
the  Jews.1 

This  is  not  so,  however.  It  must  not  be  forgotten  that 
the  church  had  no  right  to  legislate  in  civil  matters; 
yet  the  synodical  regulations,  the  ecclesiastical  interdic¬ 
tions  and  prohibitions  and  the  arguments  by  which  they 
were  supported,  exerted  an  enormous  influence  upon  the 

1  The  Councils  confine  themselves  to  ordering  the  baptism  of 
the  issue  of  mixed  marriages  as  well  as  the  dissolution  of  the 
marriage  in  case  the  Jewish  consort  is  not  converted.  Besides, 
they  decree  that  any  Jew  attempting  to  convert  his  slaves  shall 
forfeit  them  to  the  fisc. 


—  89 


political  authorities  ;  furthermore,  the  episcopate  exerted 
a  personal  and  manifest  influence  over  the  Merovingian 
or  Yisigothic  kings,  and  it  can  be  shown  that  Childebert 
or  Clotaire  II.,  e.  g.,  or  Receswinth,  in  giving  their  sanc¬ 
tion  to  ecclesiastical  decrees  and  in  promulgating  their 
own  edicts,  acted  at  the  instigation  of  the  bishops. 

Still  the  clergy  did  not  confine  themselves  to  influ¬ 
encing  legislation;  it  was  ever  at  work  inciting  against 
the  Jews  'the  populace  whose  orthodoxy  was  not  suffi¬ 
ciently  intolerant.  It  was  under  the  leadership  of  these 
priests  that  the  mob  attacked  the  synagogues  and  put  the 
Jews  to  the  alternative  of  being  massacred,  banished 
or  baptized. 

Nevertheless,  one  must  not  imagine  the  condition  of 
the  Jews  at  that  epoch  as  very  miserable.  On  the  Jew¬ 
ish,  as  well  as  on  the  Christian  side,  one  notices  a  mix¬ 
ture  of  tolerance  and  intolerance  which  is  accounted  for 
either  by  a  mutual  desire  to  make  converts,  or  even  to 
some  extent  by  reciprocal  religious  good-will.  The  Jews 
took  an  interest  in  public  life,  the  Christians  ate  at  their 
tables;  they  shared  in  their  joys  and  sorrows,  as  well 
as  in  factional  fights.  Thus  they  are  seen,  at  Arles,  to 
unite  with  the  Yisigothic  party  against  the  bishop 
Cæsarius,1  and  later  to  follow  the  funeral  of  the  same 
bishop,  crying:  Vae!  vae!  They  were  the  clients  of 
great  seignors  (as  witnessed  by  two  letters  of  Sidonius 
Apollinaris),2  and  the  latter  helped  them  to  evade  the 
vexatious  ordinances.  In  many  regions  the  clergy  visited 
them,  a  great  many  Christians  went  to  the  synagogues, 

1  Vie  de  Saint  Cesaire,  Migne.  Patrologie  latine,  t.  LXVII. 

2  Sidonius  Apollinaris,  1.  Ill,  ep.  IV,  and  1.  Y.  ep.  V. 


90 


and  the  Jews  likewise  attended  Catholic  services  during 
the  mass  of  the  catechumens.  They  resisted,  as  far  as 
possible,  the  numerous  efforts  to  convert  them,  at  times 
attended  with  violence,  notwithstanding  the  recom¬ 
mendations  of  certain  Popes  C  and  they  boldly  engaged 
in  controversies  with  theologians  who  endeavored  to  per¬ 
suade  them  by  the  same  means  as  the  Fathers  of  former 
ages.  We  shall  return  to  these  controversies  and  writ¬ 
ings  when  we  shall  come  to  study  the  anti- Jewish  lit¬ 
erature. 

Thus,  as  shown  above,  during  the  first  seven  centuries 
of  the  Christian  era,  anti-Judaism  proceeded  exclusively 
from  religious  causes  and  was  led  only  by  the  clergy. 
One  must  not  be  misled  by  popular  excesses  and  legisla¬ 
tive  repression,  for  they  were  never  spontaneous,  but 
always  inspired  by  bishops,  priests,  or  monks.  It  was 
only  since  the  eighth  century  that  social  causes  super- 


1  Fredegaire  (  Chronique,  XV  ) ,  and  Aumoin  (  Chronique 
Moissiacensis,  XLV)  relate  that,  at  the  instigation  of  Emperor 
Heraclius,  Dagobert  gave  to  the  Jews  the  choice  between  death, 
exile  and  baptism.  ( Gesta  Dagoberti,  XXIV).  The  same  is  re¬ 
ported  of  the  Visigothic  King  Sisebut  (see  appendix  to  the 
Chronicle  of  Bishop  Marius,  A.  D.  588  ;  Dom  Bouquet,  t.  II, 
p.  19).  Chilperich  forced  rnapy  Jews  to  be  baptized.  (Grég¬ 
oire  de  Tours,  H.  F.,  1.  VI,  ch.  XVII).  Bishop  Avitus  com¬ 
pelled  the  Jews  of  Clermont  to  renounce  their  faith,  or  leave 
the  city.  Grégoire  de  Tours,  H.  F.,  1.  V,  ch.  XI).  Other 
bishops  resorted  to  force,  and  it  required  the  interference  of 
Pope  St.  Gregory  to  stop  or  at  least  moderate  their  zeal.  "The 
Jews  must  not  be  baptized  by  force,  but  brought  over  by  sweet¬ 
ness,”  says  he  in  his  letters  addressed  to  Virgil  bishop  of 
Arles,  to  Theodore,  bishop  of  Marseilles,  and  to  Paschasius, 
bishop  of  Naples.  ( Regesta  Pontificum  Romanorum ,  ed. 
Jafle,  nos.  1115  and  1879).  But  the  authority  of  the  Pope 
was  not  always  effective. 


91 


veiled  to  religious  causes,  and  it  was  only  after  the 
eighth  century  that  real  persecution  commenced.  It 
coincided  with  the  universal  spread  of  Catholicism,  with 
the  development  of  feudalism  and  also  with  the  intel¬ 
lectual  and  moral  change  of  the  Jews,  which  was  mostly 
due  to  the  influence  of  the  Talmudists  and  the  exagger¬ 
ated  growth  of  exclusiveness  among  the  Jew’s.  We  shall 
now  proceed  to  examine  this  new  transformation  of  anti- 
Judaism, 


CHAPTER  V, 

ANTI-JUDAISM  FROM  THE  EIGHTH  CENTURY  TO  THE 

REFORMATION. 

Expansion  and  Christianity.— Diffusion  of  the  J ews 
Among  the  Nations. — Constitution  of  the  Nation¬ 
alities. — The  Role  of  the  Jews  in  Society. — The 
Jews  and  Commerce. — Gold  and  the  Jews. — The 
Love  of  Gold  and  Business  Acquired  by  the  J  ews. — 
The  Jew  as  Colonist  and  Emigrant. — The  Church 
and  Usury. — The  Birth  of  Patronage  and  Wage- 
System. — Transformation  of  Property. — The  Eco¬ 
nomic  Revolution  and  the  Quest  of  Gold. — The  In¬ 
stinct  of  Domination. — Gold  and  J ewish  Exclu- 
sivism. — Maimonides  and  Observation. — Solomon 
of  Montpellier. — Ben- Adret,  Asher  ben  Yechiel,  and 
Jacob  Tibbon. — The  Moreh  Nebuhhim. — Intellec¬ 
tual  and  Moral  Abasement  of  the  Jews. — The  Tal¬ 
mud. — Influence  of  this  Abasement  on  the  Social 


92 


Position  of  the  Jews. — Transformation  of  Anti- 
Judaism. — Social  Causes;  Religious  Causes;  Their 
Combination. — The  People  and  the  Jews. — The 
Pastoureaux,  the  Jacques  and  the  Armleders. — The 
Kings  and  the  Jews. — The  Monks  and  Anti- Juda¬ 
ism. — Pierre  de  Cluny,  John  of  Capistrano,  and 
Bernardinus  of  Peltre. — The  Church  and  Theo¬ 
logical  Anti- J udaism. — Christianity  and  Moham¬ 
medanism. — The  Albigenses,  the  Heretics  of  Or¬ 
leans,  the  Pasagians. — Heresies  and  Judaization. 
— The  Hussites. — The  Inquisition. — The  Bourgeoi¬ 
sie  and  the  Jews. — Ecclesiastic  and  Civil  Legisla¬ 
tion  Against  the  Jews. — Controversies  and  Con¬ 
demnation  of  the  Talmud. — Vexations. — Expul¬ 
sions. — Massacres. — The  Condition  of  the  Jews  and 
of  the  People. — The  Relativity  of  the  Jewish  Suf¬ 
ferings. — The  Reformation  and  the  Renaissance. 

The  church  reaches  its  final  constitution  in  the  eighth 
century.  The  period  of  great  doctrinal  crises  is  at  an 
end,  dogma  is  settled  and  heresies  will  not  cause  it  any 
trouble  until  the  Reformation.  Pontifical  primacy 
strikes  deep  root,  the  organization  of  the  clergy  is  hence¬ 
forth  solid,  religion  and  liturgy  are  unified,  discipline 
and  canonic  law  are  settled,  ecclesiastic  property  in¬ 
creases,  the  tithe  is  established,  the  federal  constitution 
of  the  Church — sub-divided  into  sufficiently  autonomous 
circuits — disappears,  the  movement  of  centralization  for 
the  benefit  of  Rome  is  clearly  outlined.  This  movement 
came  to  an  end,  when  the  Carolingians  had  established 
the  temporal  power  of  the  popes,  and  the  Latin  church, 


93 


strongly  hierarchical  before,  became  as  centralized,  in  a 
comparatively  short  time,  as  the  Roman  empire  of  yore, 
which  the  church’s  universal  authority  had  thus  sup¬ 
planted.  Simultaneously  Christianity  spread  further 
still  and  conquered  the  barbarians.  The  Anglo-Saxon 
missionaries  had  set  the  examples  in  Saint  Boniface  and 
Saint  Willibrod;  they  had  followers.  The  gospel  was 
preached  to  the  Alamans,  the  Frisians,  the  Saxons,  the 
Scandinavians,  the  Bohemians  and  the  Hungarians,  the 
Russians  and  the  Wends,  the  Pomeranians  and  the  Prus¬ 
sians,  the  Lithuanians  and  the  Finns.  The  work  was  ac¬ 
complished  at  the  end  of  the  thirteenth  century:  Eu¬ 
rope  was  christianized. 

The  Jews  settled  in  the  wake  of  Christianity  as  it 
kept  spreading  by  degrees.  In  the  ninth  century,  they 
came  from  France  to  Germany,  got  thence  into  Bohemia, 
into  Hungary  and  into  Poland,  where  they  met  another 
wave  of  Jews — those  coming  by  way  of  the  Caucasus 
and  converting  on  their  march  several  Tartar  tribes. 
In  the  twelfth  century  they  settled  in  England  and  Bel¬ 
gium,  and  everywhere  they  built  their  synagogues,  they 
organized  their  communities  at  that  decisive  hour, 
when  the  nations  were  coming  out  from  chaos,  when 
states  were  being  formed  and  consolidated.  They  re¬ 
mained  outside  of  these  great  agitations,  amid  which 
conquering  and  conquered  races  were  amalgamating  and 
uniting  one  with  the  other;  and  in  the  midst  of  these 
tumultuous  combinations  they  remained  spectators, 
strangers  and  hostile  to  these  fusions  :  an  eternal  people 
witnessing  the  rise  of  new  nations.  However,  their  role 
was  surely  of  account  at  all  times  ;  they  were  one  of  the 


94 


active  elements  of  ferment  of  these  societies  in  the 
process  of  formation. 

In  some  countries,  as,  e.  g.,  in  Spain,  their  history  is 
in  so  high  a  degree  interlinked  with  that  of  the  penin¬ 
sula,  that,  without  them  it  is  impossible  to  grasp  and 
appreciate  the  development  of  the  Spanish  people.  But 
if  they  had  influenced  its  constitution  by  the  numbers 
of  their  converts  in  that  country,  by  the  support  they 
had  given  in  succession  to  the  various  masters  in  posses¬ 
sion  of  its  soil, — they  did  so  by  seeking  to  bring  to  them¬ 
selves  those  among  whom  they  lived  and  not  by  letting 
themselves  be  absorbed.  Still,  the  history  of  the  Span¬ 
ish  Marranos  is  exceptional.  Everywhere,  though,  as 
we  shall  see,  the  Jews  played  a  part  of  economic  agents; 
they  did  not  create  a  social  state,  but  they  assisted  after 
a  fashion  in  establishing  it,  and  yet  they  could  not  be 
treated  with  favor  among  the  organizations  to  whose 
formation  they  had  lent  aid.  For  this  there  was  a  seri- 
our  obstacle.  All  the  states  of  the  Middle  Ages  were 
moulded  by  the  church;  in  their  essence,  in  their  very 
being,  they  were  permeated  with  the  ideas  and  doc¬ 
trines  of  Catholicism;  the  Christian  religion  gave  the 
unity  they  lacked  to  the  numerous  tribes  which  had 
gathered  together  into  nations.  As  representatives  of 
contrary  dogmas,  the  Jews  could  not  but  oppose  the  gen¬ 
eral  movement,  both  by  their  proselytism,  and  by  their 
very  presence  as  well.  As  the  church  led  this 
movement  it  was  from  the  church  that  anti-Judaism, 
theoretical  and  legislative,  proceeded,  anti- Judaism 
which  the  governments  and  the  peoples  shared  and  which 
other  causes  came  to  aggravate.  The  social  and  religious 


95 


state  of  affairs  and  the  Jews  themselves  gave  origin  to 
these  causes.  But  they  had  remained  ever  subordinated 
to  those  essential  reasons  which  may  be  traced  to  the 
opposition,  then  secular  already, — between  the  Christian 
spirit  and  the  Jewish  spirit,  between  the  universal,  and 
so  to  say,  international  Catholic  religion,  and  the  partie- 
ularist  and  narrow  Jewish  faith.  At  bottom,  and  we  keep 
in  mind  the  changes  which  had  taken  place,  the  situa¬ 
tion  was  the  same  as  in  Pagan  antiquity.  By  the  very 
fact  of  denying  the  divinity  of  Christ,  the  Jews  placed 
themselves  as  enemies  of  the  social  order,  since  this 
social  order  was  based  on  Christianity,  just  as  formerly 
in  Rome,  they  had  been,  together  with  the  Christians 
themselves,  enemies  of  another  social  order.  In  the 
midst  of  the  downfall  of  the  ancient  world,  amid  the 
radical  transformations  which  had  taken  place  this 
ubiquitous  people  of  the  Jews  had  not  changed.  It  pre¬ 
tended  to  preserve  as  ever  before,  its  manners,  its  cus¬ 
toms,  its  habits  and  at  the  same  time  to  participate  in  all 
the  advantages  which  states  granted  to  their  members  or 
their  subjects.  For  all  these  states,  very  heterogeneous 
at  first,  were  becoming  homogeneous  ;  they  were  advanc¬ 
ing  to  an  ever-increasing  unity  ;  from  the  middle  ages  on 
they  were  aspiring  to  that  unity  at  which  they  arrived 
later.  Accordingly  they  were  led  to  combat  the  foreign 
elements,  foreign  nationally  and  dogmatically,  whether 
these  elements  came  from  without,  as,  e.  g.,  the  Arabs, 
or  they  existed  within,  as  the  Jews.  At  this  point  of  his¬ 
tory,  the  national  struggle  and  the  confessional  struggle 
intermingle.  With  the  persistent  barbarism  of  the  feu¬ 
dal  system  the  struggle  was  naturally  fierce,  the  more  so 


96 


that  it  was  instinctive  rather  than  rational,  especially 
so  on  the  part  of  the  people,  for  the  church  or  the  popes 
and  the  synods  at  least  proceeded  upon  reasoning.  With 
these  general  principles  given  we  shall  see  how  they 
acted  upon  and  in  what  manner  they  influenced  the 
special  and  particular  manifestations  of  anti- Judaism. 
To  this  end  we  must  say  a  word  about  the  commercial 
and  financial  role  of  the  J ews,  of  their  activity  and  their 
spirit. 

Only  towards  the  end  of  the  eighth  century  the  ac¬ 
tivity  of  the  Western  Jews  developed.  Protected  in 
Spain  by  the  Khalifs,  given  support  by  Charlemagne 
who  let  the  Merovingian  laws  fall  into  disuse,  they  ex¬ 
tended  their  commerce  which  until  then  centered  chiefly 
in  the  sale  of  slaves.  For  this  they  were,  indeed,  par¬ 
ticularly  favored  by  circumstances.  Their  communities 
were  in  constant  communication,  they  were  united  by 
the  religious  bond  which  tied  them  all  to  the  theological 
centre  of  Babylonia  whose  dependencies  they  considered 
themselves  up  to  the  decline  of  the  exilarchate.  Thus 
they  acquired  very  great  facilities  for  exporting  com¬ 
merce,  in  which  they  amassed  considerable  fortunes,  if 
we  are  to  believe  the  diatribes  of  Dagobard,* 1  and  later 
those  of  Rigord,2  which,  with  all  their  exaggeration  of 
the  property  of  the  Jews  must  not,  yet,  be  entirely  re¬ 
jected  as  unworthy  of  credence.3  Indeed,  with  regard  to 
this  wealth  of  the  Jews,  especially  in  France  and  Spain, 

1  De  Insolentia  Iudaeorum  (Patrologie  Latine,  v.  CIV  ) 

1  Gesta  Philippi  Augusti. 

8  For  the  position  of  Southern  Jews  at  the  time  of  Philip 
the  Fair,  cf.  Simeon  Luce  {Catalogue  des  documents  du  Trésor 

des  Chartes  (Revue  des  Etudes  Juives,  v.  I,  3.) 


97 


we  possess  the  testimonies  of  chroniclers  and  the  Jews 
themselves,  several  of  whom  reproached  their  coreligion¬ 
ists  for  devoting  to  the  worldly  welfare  much  more  time 
than  to  the  worship  of  J eliovah.  “Instead  of  calculating 
the  numerical  value  of  the  name  of  God,”  says  the  Kab- 
balist  Abulafia,  “the  Jews  prefer  to  count  their  riches.” 

Parallel  with  the  general  advance  we  really  see  this 
preoccupation  with  wealth  grow  among  the  Jews  and 
their  practical  activity  concentrating  on  a  special 
business:  I  mean  the  gold  business.  Here  we  must 
emphasize  a  point.  It  has  often  been  said,  and  it  is  re¬ 
peated  still,  that  the  Christian  societies  had  forced  the 
Jews  into  this  position  of  creditor  and  usurer,  which 
they  have  for  a  long  time  kept  :  this  is  the  thesis  of  the 
philosemites.  On  the  other  hand  the  antisémites  assert 
that  the  Jews,  from  time  immemorial,  had  natural  in¬ 
clinations  for  commerce  and  finance,  and  that  they  but 
followed  their  normal  disposition,  and  that  nothing  had 
ever  been  forced  upon  them.  In  these  two  assertions 
there  is  a  portion  of  verity  and  a  portion  of  error,  or 
rather  that  there  is  room  to  comment  on  them,  and 
especially  to  give  them  a  hearing. 

At  the  time  of  their  national  prosperity  the  Jews, 
like  all  other  nations,  for  that  matter,  had  a  class  of 
the  rich,  which  proved  itself  as  eager  for  gain  and  as 
bard  to  the  lowly  as  the  capitalists  of  all  ages  and  all 
nations  have  proven.  The  antisémites,  as  well,  who 
make  use  of  the  texts  of  Isaiah  and  Jeremiah,  e.  g.,  to 
prove  the  constant  eternal  rapacity  of  the  Jews,  act  very 
naively,  and,  thanks  to  the  words  of  the  prophets,  can  but 
establish, — and  puerile  it  is,— the  existence,  in  Israel,  of 


98 


possessors  and  poor.  If  they  examined  impartially  the 
Judaic  codes  and  precepts  only,  they  would  acknowledge 
that  legislation  and  morals  prescribed  never  to  charge  in¬ 
terest  on  debts.1  Taking  all  in  all,  the  Jews  were,  in 
Palestine,  the  least  mercantile  of  the  Semites,  in  this  re¬ 
gard  much  inferior  to  the  Phoenicians  and  Carthagin¬ 
ians.  It  was  only  under  Solomon  that  they  entered  into 
intercourse  with  the  other  nations.  Even  at  that  time,  it 
was  a  powerful  corporation  of  Phoenicians  that  was  en¬ 
gaged  in  the  banking  business  at  Jerusalem.  However, 
the  geographical  position  of  Palestine  prevented  its  in¬ 
habitants  from  devoting  themselves  to  a  very  extensive 
and  considerable  traffic.  Nevertheless,  during  the  first 
captivity  and  through  the  contact  with  the  Babylonians, 
a  class  of  merchants  had  formed,  and  from  it  came  the 
first  Jewish  emigrants,  who  established  their  colonies 
in  Egypt,  Cyrenaica  and  Asia  Minor.  In  all  cities  that 
admitted  them  they  formed  active  communities,  power¬ 
ful  and  opulent,  and,  with  the  final  dispersion,  important 


1  “Thou  shall  not  lend  upon  usury  to  thy  brother  ;  usury  of 
money,  usury  of  victuals,  usury  of  anything  that  is  lent  upon 
usury:  unto  a  stranger  ( nokhri )  thou  mayest  Ieud  upon  usury.” 
Deuter.  XXIII,  19-20. 

Nokhri  means  a  transient  stranger  ;  a  resident  stranger  is  ger. 

“And  if  thy  brother  be  waxen  poor,  and  fallen  in  decay  with 
thee  ;  then  thou  shalt  relieve  him  :  yea,  though  he  le  a  stranger, 
or  a  sojourner;  that  he  may  live  with  thee.  Take  tbcu  no 
usury  of  him  or  increase.”  Levit.  XXV,  35-30. 

“Lord,  who  shall  abide  in  Thy  tabernacle?  .  .  .  Tie  that 

putteth  not  out  his  money  to  usury.”  (Psalm,  XV,  1-5). 
“Even  to  a  non-Jew,”  adds  the  Talmudic  commentary,  (Mak- 
Tooth  XXIV).  Consult  also:  Exod.  XXII  25;  Philo,  De 
Charitate;  Josephus,  Antiquitates  Judaeorum,  B.  IV,  ch.  VIII  ; 
Selden,  B.  VI.,  ch.  IX). 


99 


groups  of  emigrants  joined  the  original  groups  which 
facilitated  their  installation.  To  explain  the  attitude  of 
the  Jews  it  is,  accordingly,  not  necessary  to  fall  back  upon 
a  theory  of  the  Arian  genius  and  the  Semitic  genius. 
Indeed,  we  well  know  the  traditional  Roman  cupidity 
and  the  commercial  sense  of  the  Greeks.  The  usury  of 
the  Roman  feneratores  had  no  limit  any  more  than  had 
their  bad  faith  ;  they  were  encouraged  by  the  very  harsh 
laws  against  the  debtors, — a  worthy  daughter  of  that 
law  of  the  Twelve  Tables  which  granted  to  the  creditor 
the  right  of  cutting  pieces  of  flesh  from  the  live  body  of 
an  insolvent  borrower.  In  Rome  gold  was  absolute  mas¬ 
ter,  and  Juvenal  could  speak  of  the  “sanctissima  divit- 
iarum  maiestas A1  As  to  the  Greeks,  they  were  the 
cleverest  and  boldest  of  speculators;  rivalling  the  Phoe¬ 
nicians  in  the  slave-trade,  in  piracy,  they  knew  the  use 
of  letters  of  exchange  and  maritime  insurance,  and, 
Solon  having  authorized  usury,  they  never  did  away 
with  it. 

As  a  nation  the  Jews  differed  in  nothing  from  other 
nations,  and  if  at  first  they  were  a  nation  of  shepherds 
and  agriculturists,  they  came,  by  a  natural  course  of 
evolution,  to  constitute  other  classes  among  them.  And 
devoting  themselves  to  commerce,  after  their  dispersion, 
they  followed  a  general  law  which  is  applicable  to  all 
colonists.  Indeed,  with  the  exception  of  cases  when 
he  goes  to  break  virgin  soil,  the  emigrant  can  be  only  an 
artisan  or  merchant,  as  nothing  but  necessity  or  allure- 

1  The  Hebrew  Sibyl  speaks  of  “the  execrable  thirst  for  gold, 
of  the  passion  for  sordid  gain  which  goads  the  Latins  on  to 
the  conquest  of  the  world,” 


100 


ment  of  gain  can  force  him  to  leave  his  native  soil. 
Therefore,  the  Jews  coming  into  Western  cities  acted 
in  no  way  differently  from  the  Dutch  or  English  when 
they  established  business  offices.  Nevertheless,  they 
came  soon  enough  to  specialize  in  the  money  business, 
for  which  they  have  been  so  bitterly  reproached  ever 
since,  and  in  the  fourteenth  century  they  constituted 
quite  a  coterie  of  changers  and  lenders  :  they  had  become 
the  bankers  of  the  world.  They  are  accused  of  having 
created  popular  loan  banks,  and  they  become  the  figure¬ 
heads  for  the  lords  and  rich  bourgeois.  This  was  a  fatal 
proceeding,  if  we  remember  the  particular  notion  enter¬ 
tained  by  the  church  concerning  money,  and  also  the 
economic  conditions  prevailing  in  Europe  from  the 
twelfth  century  on. 

The  Middle  Ages  considered  gold  and  silver  as  tokens 
possessing  imaginary  value,  varying  at  the  will  of  the 
king,  who  could  order  its  rate  according  to  the  dictations 
of  his  fancy.  This  notion  was  derived  from  Roman  law, 
which  refused  to  treat  money  as  a  merchandise.  The 
church  inherited  these  financial  dogmas,  combined  them 
with  the  biblical  prescriptions  which  forbade  loan  on 
interest,  and  was  severe,  from  its  very  start,  against  the 
Christians  and  ecclesiastics  even  that  followed  the  exam¬ 
ple  of  the  feneratores ,  who  advanced  money  at  24,  48  and 
even  60  per  cent.,  when  the  legal  rate  of  interest  was  12 
per  cent.  The  canons  of  councils  are  quite  explicit  on  this 
point;  they  follow  the  teaching  of  the  Fathers,  Saint 
Augustin,  Saint  Chrysostom,  Saint  Jerome;  they  forbid 
loans  and  are  harsh  against  those  clerics  and  laymen 
who  engage  in  the  usurer’s  business.  Their  severity  did 


ioi 


not  prevent  usury  entirely,  but  it  lessened  it  by  brand¬ 
ing  it  with  infamy.  At  the  same  time  social  conditions 
were  such  as  to  make  usury  inevitable,  and  in  these  con-* 
ditions  the  synods  could  change  nothing  whatever.  Dur¬ 
ing  several  centuries  feudalism  had  plundered  communi¬ 
ties  of  their  possessions  and  increased  its  territories  at 
the  expense  of  communal  lands.  On  the  disappearance 
of  serfdom,  economic  slavery  took  the  place  of  personal 
slavery,  a  portion  of  the  population  was  forced  in¬ 
to  vagabondage,  which  accounts  for  those  bands  of  vaga¬ 
bonds,  beggars  and  thieves,  that  overran  the  roads  of 
France  in  the  fourteenth  century.  The  other  portion 
was  compelled  to  work  for  wages  or  they  lived  as  farm¬ 
ers  and  tenants  on  the  soil  which  had  been  their  own. 

At  the  same  time,  in  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  cen¬ 
turies,  the  wage  system  were  established,  the 
bourgeoisie  developed,  grew  rich  and  acquired  priv¬ 
ileges  and  franchises  :  capitalistic  power  was  now  born. 
Commerce  having  taken  on  a  new  form,  the  value  of 
gold  increased  and  the  passion  for  money  grew  with  the 
importance  which  the  currency  had  acquired. 

Indeed,  on  one  hand  were  the  rich,  on  the  other — the 
peasants,  landless,  subject  to  the  tithe  and  presta¬ 
tions;  workingmen  dominated  over  by  the  capitalist 
laws.  To  cap  it  all,  perpetual  wars,  revolts,  diseases  and 
famines.  Whenever  the  year  was  bad,  the  money  gave 
out,  the  crop  failed,  an  epidemic  came,  the  peasant,  the 
proletarian,  and  the  small  bourgeois  were  forced  to 
resort  to  borrowing.  Hence,  by  necessity  there  were  to 
be  borrowers.  But  the  church  had  forbidden  loan  at 
interest,  and  capital  does  not  choose  to  remain  unproduc- 


102 


live,  but  during  the  Middle  Ages  capital  could  only  be 
cither  merchant  or  lender,  as  money  could  be  made  pro¬ 
ductive  in  no  other  way.  As  far  as  the  ecclesiastical  de¬ 
cisions  had  any  influence,  a  great  part  of  the  Christian 
capitalists  did  not  want  to  begin  an  open  revolt  against 
their  authority;  there  was  also  formed  a  class  of  repro¬ 
bates  for  whom  the  bourgeoisie  and  nobility  often  acted 
as  silent  partners.  It  consisted  of  Lombards,  Caeorsins, 
to  whom  the  princes,  the  lords  granted  the  privileges  of 
loaning  on  interest,  gathering  a  part  of  the  profits  which 
were  considerable,  as  the  Lombards  lent  money  at  10 
per  cent,  a  month;  or  of  unscrupulous  foreigners,  like 
Tuscan  emigrants  settled  in  Istria  who  went  in  usury  to 
such  extremes  that  the  community  of  Triest  sus¬ 
pended,  in  1350,  all  executions  for  debts  for  three 
years.  This  did  not  take  away  the  ground  from  under 
the  usurers,  but  as  I  have  said  they  found  obstacles  which 
the  church  placed  in  the  way  of  their  operations  (the 
council  of  Lyons  of  1215  wanted  to  declare  the  wills  of 
usurers  void) . 

As  for  J ews,  these  obstacles  did  not  exist.  The  church 
had  no  moral  power  over  them,  it  could  not  forbid  them, 
in  the  name  of  the  doctrine  and  dogma,  to  engage  in 
money  exchanging  and  banking.  The  Jews,  who  at  this 
epoch  were  mostly  merchants  and  capitalists,  profited 
by  this  liberty  and  the  economic  condition  of  the  peo¬ 
ples  among  whom  they  lived.  In  this  path  the  ecclesiastic 
authorities  encouraged,  rather  than  restrained  them,  and 
the  Christian  bourgeois  kept  them  busy  in  it  by  fur¬ 
nishing  them  with  capitals  and  employing  them  as  dum¬ 
mies.  Thus  a  religious  conception  of  the  functions  of 


103 


capital  and  interest,  and  a  social  system  which  ran 
counter  to  this  conception,  led  the  Jews  of  the  Middle 
Ages  to  adopt  a  profession  cried  down  but  made  neces¬ 
sary  ;  and  in  reality  they  were  not  the  cause  of  the  abuses 
of  usury,  for  which  the  social  order  itself  was  respon¬ 
sible.  Thus  we  see  that,  in  part,  motives  foreign  to 
them,  to  their  nature,  to  their  temperament,  brought 
them  to  this  position  of  pawnbrokers,  money  changers 
and  bankers,  but  it  is  but  just  to  add  that  they  had 
been  prepared  for  this  by  their  very  position,  and  this 
position  they  surely  had  sought.  If  they  did  not  culti¬ 
vate  land,  if  they  were  not  agriculturists,  it  is  not  be¬ 
cause  they  possessed  none,  as  has  often  been  said  ;  the 
restrictive  laws  relative  to  the  property  rights  of  the 
Jews  came  at  a  date  posterior  to  their  settlement.  They 
own  property,  but  had  their  domains  cultivated  by 
slaves,  for  their  stubborn  patriotism  forbade  them  to 
break  foreign  soil.  This  patriotism,  the  notion  which 
they  attached  to  the  sanctity  of  their  Palestinian  father- 
land,  the  allusion  which  the}r  kept  alive  in  them  of  the 
restoration  of  that  fatherland  and  this  particular  faith 
which  made  them  consider  themselves  exiles  who  would 
one  day  again  see  the  holy  city, — all  this  drove  them 
above  all  other  foreigners  and  colonists  to  take  up  com¬ 
merce. 

As  merchants  thev  were  destined  to  become  usurers, 

*y  ' 

given  the  conditions  which  the  codes  had  imposed  upon 
them  and  the  conditions  they  had  imposed  upon  them¬ 
selves.  To  escape  persecution  and  annoyance  they  had 
to  make  themselves  useful,  even  necessary,  to  their  rulers, 
the  noblemen  upon  whom  they  depended,  to  the  church 


104 


whose  vassals  they  were.  Now  the  nobleman,  the 
Church — despite  its  anathemas — needed  gold,  and  this 
gold  they  demanded  from  the  Jews.  During  the  Middle 
Ages  gold  became  the  great  motive  power,  the  supreme 
deity;  alchemists  spent  their  lives  in  search  of  the  magis- 
tery  which  was  to  produce  it,  the  idea  of  possessing  it 
inflamed  the  minds,  in  its  name  all  kinds  of  cruelties 
were  committed,  the  thirst  of  riches  laid  hold  of  all 
souls  ;  later  on,  for  Cortez  and  Pizarro,  the  successors  of 
Columbus,  the  conquest  of  America  meant  the  conquest 
of  gold.  The  Jews  fell  under  the  universal  charm — the 
same  under  which  the  Templars  had  fallen — and  for 
them  it  was  particularly  fatal,  because  of  their  state  of 
mind  and  the  civil  status  imposed  upon  them.  To  acquire 
a  few  scanty  privileges,  or  rather,  in  order  to  exist,  they 
turned  brokers  in  gold,  but  this  the  Christians  sought  as 
eagerly  as  they.  More  than  that,  under  the  constant  men¬ 
ace  of  banishment,  always  acamp,  forced  to  be  nomads, 
the  Jews  had  to  guard  against  the  terrible  eventualities 
of  exile.  They  had  to  transform  their  property  so  as  to 
make  it  more  convertible  into  money,  that  is,  to  give  it 
a  more  movable  form,  and  they  were  the  most  active  in 
developing  the  money  value,  in  considering  it  as  a  mer¬ 
chandise,  hence  the  lending  and — to  recoup  for  periodic 
and  unavoidable  confiscations — the  usury. 

The  creation  of  guilds, — merchant  and  craft — 
guilds  and  their  organization,  in  the  thirteenth 
century,  finally  forced  the  Jews  into  the  con¬ 
dition  to  which  they  had  been  led  by  the  so¬ 
cial  conditions — general  and  special — under  which 
they  lived.  All  these  organizations  were,  so  to  speak, 


} 


—  105  — 

religious  organizations,  brotherhoods  which  none  joined 
but  those  who  prostrated  themselves  before  the  standard 
of  the  patron  saint.  The  ceremonies  attendant  upon  the 
initiation  into  these  bodies  being  Christian  ceremonies, 
the  Jews  could  not  but  be  shut  out  from  them:  and  so 
they  were.  A  series  of  prohibitions  successively  shut 
them  out  of  all  industry  and  all  commerce,  except  that 
in  odds  and  ends  and  in  old  clothes.  Those  who 
escaped  this  disqualification  did  so  by  virtue  of  special 
privileges  for  which  they  oftenest  paid  too  dearly. 

However,  this  is  not  all;  other  more  intimate  causes 
were  added  to  those  I  have  just  enumerated,  and  all 
joined  in  throwing  the  Jew  more  and  more  out  of 
society,  in  shutting  him  up  in  the  ghetto,  in  immobiliz¬ 
ing  him  behind  the  counter  where  he  was  weighing  gold. 

An  energetic,  vivacious  nation,  of  infinite  pride,  • 
thinking  themselves  superior  to  the  other  nations,  the 
Jews  wished  to  become  a  power.  They  instinctively  had 
a  taste  for  domination,  as  they  believed  themselves 
superior  to  all  others  by  their  origin,  their  religion, 
their  title  of  a  “chosen  race,”  which  they  had  always 
ascribed  to  themselves.  To  exercise  this  kind  of  power 
the  Jews  had  no  choice  of  means.  Gold  gave  them  a 
power  which  all  political  and  religious  laws  denied  them, 
and  it  was  the  only  one  they  could  hope  for.  As 
possessors  of  gold  they  became  the  masters  of  their 
masters,  they  dominated  over  them,  and  this  was  the  only 
way  to  deploy  their  energy  and  their  activity. 

Would  they  not  have  been  able  to  display  it  in  some 
other  fashion?  Yes,  and  they  tried  it,  but  there  they 
had  to  fight  their  own  spirit.  For  many  long  years  they 


had  worked  in  the  intellectual  line,  devoted  themselves 
to  sciences,  letters,  philosophy.  They  were  mathema¬ 
ticians  and  astronomers;  they  practised  medicine,  and, 
if  the  school  of  Montpellier  was  not  founded  by  them, 
they  surely  helped  in  developing  it;  they  had  translated 
the  works  of  Averroes  and  of  the  Arabic  commentators 
of  Aristotle;  they  had  revealed  the  Greek  philosophy  to 
the  Christian  world,  and  their  metaphysicians  Ibn 
Gabirol  and  Maimonides  had  been  among  the  teachers 
of  the  schoolmen.1  For  years  they  had  been  the  depos¬ 
itories  of  knowledge;  like  the  initiated  of  old  they  held 
the  torch  which  they  handed  over  to  the  Westerners; 
with  the  Arabs,  they  had  taken  a  most  active  part  in  the 
efflorescence  and  expansion  of  the  admirable  Semitic 
civilization  which  had  arisen  in  Spain  and  Southern 
France  and  had  ushered  in  and  prepared  the  way  for 
the  Renaissance.  Who  stopped  them  in  this  advance? 
They  themselves. 

Their  doctors  endeavored  to  confine  Israel  to  the  ex¬ 
clusive  study  of  the  law  in  order  to  preserve  Israel  from 
outside  influences,  pernicious,  it  was  said,  to  the  in¬ 
tegrity  of  the  law.  Efforts  to  this  effect  had  been 
made  since  the  time  of  the  Maccabees,  when  the  Helle- 
nizers  constituted  a  great  party  in  Palestine.  Beaten 
at  first,  or,  at  least,  hardly  listened  to,  those  who 
later  acquired  the  name  of  obscurantists,  kept  at  their 
task.  When  Jewish  intolerance  and  bigotry  grew  in  the 
twelfth  century,  when  exclusiveness  increased,  the 
struggle  between  the  partisans  of  profane  science  and 
their  opponents  became  fiercer,  it  blazed  up  after  the 

1  Cf.  S.  Munk,  Melanges  de  philosophic  juive  et  arabe. 


107 


death  of  Maimonides  and  ended  in  the  victory  of  the 
obscurantists. 

In  his  works,  particularly  in  the  Moreh  Nebukhim 
( Guide  of  the  Perplexed)1  Moses  Maimonides  at¬ 
tempted  to  reconcile  faith  and  science.  As  a  convinced 
Aristotelian,  he  wished  to  unite  peripatetic  philosophy 
with  the  Mosaic  faith,  and  his  speculations  on  the  nature 
of  the  soul  and  its  immortality  found  followers  and 
ardent  admirers,  as  well  as  fierce  detractors.  The 
latter  reproached  him  for  sacrificing  dogma  to  meta¬ 
physics  and  scorning  the  fundamental  beliefs  of 
Judaism,  e.  g.,  the  resurrection  of  the  dead.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  especially  in  France  and  Spain,  the  Maimun- 
ists  were  led  to  neglect  the  ritual  practices  and  petty 
ceremonies  of  worship  :  bold  rationalists,  they  had  alle¬ 
goric  interpretations  for  the  biblical  miracles,  as  the 
disciples  of  Philo  before  them,  and  thus  they  escaped  the 
tyranny  of  religious  precepts.  They  claimed  the  right 
of  taking  part  in  the  intellectual  movement  of  the  time 
and  mingling  in  the  society  in  which  they  lived,  without 
giving  up  their  beliefs.  Their  opponents  clung  to  the 
purity  of  Israel,  to  the  absolute  integrity  of  its  worship, 
its  rites,  and  its  beliefs;  in  philosophy  and  science  they 
saw  the  most  deadly  enemies  of  Judaism  and  maintained 
that  the  Jews  were  destined  to  perish  and  scatter  among 
the  nations,  if  they  did  not  recover  their  wits  and  did  not 
reject  everything  that  was  not  of  the  Holy  Law.  Xo 
doubt  they  were  right  from  their  narrow  and  fanatical 
point  of  view,  but  thanks  to  them  the  Jews  continued 
everywhere  as  a  foreign  race,  jealously  guarding  its  laws 

1 Guide  tics  Egarés  (Translated  by  S.  Munk). 


108 


and  customs,  resigned  to  intellectual  and  moral  death 
rather  than  to  the  physical  and  natural  death  of  fallen 
nations. 

In  1232,  Eabbi  Solomon  of  Montpellier  issued  an 
anathema  against  all  those  who  would  read  the  Moreh 
Nebukhim  or  would  take  up  scientific  and  philosophic 
studies.  This  was  the  signal  for  the  struggle.  It  was 
violent  on  both  sides,  and  all  weapons  were  resorted  to. 
The  fanatical  rabbis  appealed  to  the  fanaticism  of  the 
Dominicans,  they  denounced  the  Guide  of  the  Perplexed 
and  had  it  burned  by  the  inquisition:  it  was  the 
work  of  Solomon  of  Montpellier,  but  it  marked  the 
overthrow  of  the  obscurantists.  Still  this  defeat  did  not 
end  the  struggle.  It  was  renewed  at  the  end  of  the 
century  against  Jacob  Tibbon  of  Montpellier  by  Don 
Astruc  of  Lunel,  supported  by  Solomon  Ben  Adret  of 
Barcelona.  At  the  instigation  of  a  German  doctor, 
Asher  Ben  Yechiel,  a  synod  of  thirty  rabbis  met  at 
Barcelona,  with  Ben  Adret  in  the  chair,  and  excommuni¬ 
cated  all  those  who  read  books  other  than  the' Bible  and 
the  Talmud,  when  under  twenty-five  years. 

A  counter-excommunication  was  proclaimed  by  Jacob 
Tibbon,  who,  at  the  head  of  all  Provencal  rabbis,  boldly 
defended  condemned  science.  All  was  in  vain:  those 
wretched  Jews,  whom  everybody  tormented  for  their 
faith,  persecuted  their  coreligionists  more  cruelly  and 
severely  than  they  had  ever  been  persecuted.  Those 
whom  they  accused  of  indifference  had  to  undergo  the 
worst  punishments;  the  blasphemers  had  their  tongues 
cut;  Jewish  women  who  had  any  relations  with  Chris¬ 
tians  were  condemned  to  disfigurement:  their  noses 


109 


were  subjected  to  ablation.  Despite  this,  Tibbon’s  fol¬ 
lowers  persisted.  It  was  due  to  them,  that  Jewish 
thought  did  not  completely  die  out  in  Spain,  France  and 
Italy  during  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries.  Even 
such  men  as  Moses  of  Narbonne  and  Levy  de  Bagnols,  as 
Elias  of  Crete  and  Alemani,  the  teacher  of  Pico  di 
Mirandola,  as  well  as  later  Spinoza,  were  all  isolated 
men.  As  for  the  mass  of  Jews,  it  had  completely  fallen 
under  the  power  of  the  obscurantists.  Hereafter  if  was 
separated  from  the  world,  its  whole  horizon  was  shut 
out;  to  nourish  its  spirit  it  had  nothing  but  futile  tal- 
mudic  commentaries,  idle  and  mediocre  discussions  on 
the  Law.  Like  the  mummies  swaddled  in  their  bandlets, 
it  was  shut  up  and  choked  in  ceremonial  practices  :  its 
rulers  and  guides  had  it  shut  up  in  the  tightest  and  most 
abominable  of  dungeons.  Hence  a  terrible  deadening' 
and  awful  decadence,  a  sinking  of  intellectualism,  a 
compression  of  the  brain  which  made  them  incapable  of 
grasping  any  idea. 

Henceforth  the  Jew  thought  no  longer.  And  what 
need  had  he  of  thinking  since  he  possessed  a  minute, 
precise  code,  the  work  of  casuist  legists,  which  could  give 
answer  to  any  question  that  it  was  legitimate  to  ask? 
For  believers  were  forbidden  to  inquire  into  problems 
which  were  not  mentioned  in  this  code — the  Talmud.  The 
Jew  found  everything  foreseen  in  the  Talmud  :  the  senti¬ 
ments,  the  emotions,  whatever  they  might  be,  were  desig¬ 
nated;  prayers,  formulas,  all  readj^-made,  supplied  the 
means  for  expressing  them.  The  book  left  room  neither 
to  reason  nor  to  freedom,  inasmuch  as  in  instruction 
the  legendary  and  gnomical  portions  were  almost  pro- 


110 


scribed, — to  lay  stress  upon  the  law  and  ritual.  Through 
such  an  education  the  Jew  not  only  lost  all  spontaneity, 
all  intellectuality:  he  saw  his  morality  decrease  and 
weaken.  Taking  into  account  actions  onty,  and  that, 
too,  external  ones,  accomplished  mechanically  and  not 
with  a  moral  purpose,  the  Talmudists  equally  restricted 
the  Jewish  soul;  and  between  the  worship  and  religion 
which  they  preached  and  the  Chinese  system  of  prayer- 
mills,  there  is  but  the  difference  between  the  complex 
and  the  simple.  True,  by  the  tyranny  they  had  exercised 
over  their  flock  they  developed  in  each  the  ingenuity 
and  spirit  of  craftiness  necessary  to  escape  from  the 
net  which  closed  without  pity;  but  they  also  increased 
the  natural  positivism  of  the  J ews  by  presenting 
to  them  as  their  only  ideal  the  material  and  per¬ 
sonal  happiness,  a  happiness  which  one  could  attain 
on  earth  if  one  knew  how  to  bind  oneself  to  the  thousand 
religious  laws.  To  attain  this  selfish  happiness,  the 
Jew,  whom  the  prescribed  ceremonies  rid  of  all  care 
and  trouble,  was  fatally  led  on  to  strive  after  gold,  for 
under  the  existing  social  conditions  which  ruled  him, 
as  they  ruled  all  the  people  of  that  epoch,  gold  alone 
could  give  him  the  gratification  which  his  limited  and 
narrow  brain  could  conceive.  Thus,  by  himself  and  by 
those  around  him  ;  by  his  own  laws  and  by  those  imposed 
upon  him;  by  his  artificial  nature  and  circumstances, 
the  Jew  was  directed  to  gold.  He  was  prepared  to  be 
changer,  lender,  usurer,  one  who  strives  after  the  metal, 
at  first  for  the  pleasures  it  could  afford  and  then  after¬ 
wards  for  the  sole  happiness  of  possessing  it;  one  who 
greedily  seizes  gold  and  avariciously  immobilizes  it. 


Ill 


The  Jew  having  become  such,  anti- Judaism  became 
more  complicated,  social  causes  intermingled  with 
religious  causes  ;  the  combination  of  these  causes 
explains  .the  intensity  and  gravity  of  the  persecutions 
which  Israel  had  to  undergo. 

Indeed,  the  Lombards  and  Caorsins,  for  instance, 
were  the  object  of  popular  animosity;  they  were  hated 
and  despised  but  they  were  not  victims  of  systematic 
persecutions.  It  was  deemed  abominable  that  Jews 
should  have  acquired  wealth,  especially  because  they 
were  Jews.  Against  the  Christian  who  cheated  him, 
and  was  neither  better  nor  worse  than  the  Jew,  the  poor 
wretch  when  plundered  felt  less  anger  than  against  the 
Israelite  reprobate,  the  enemy  of  Cod  and  man.  When 
the  deicide,  even  so  the  object  of  terror,  had  become  the 
usurer,  the  collector  of  taxes,  the  merciless  agent  of  the 
fisc, — the  terror  increased  ;  it  became  intermingled  with 
hatred  on  the  part  of  the  oppressed  and  downtrodden. 
The  simple  minds  did  not  seek  the  real  causes  of  their 
distress  ;  they  only  saw  the  proximate  causes.  For  the  Jew 
was  the  proximate  cause  of  usury;  by  the  heavy  interest 
he  charged  he  caused  destitution,  severe  and  hard 
misery;  accordingly,  it  was  upon  the  Jews  that  enmities 
fell.  The  suffering  populace  did  not  trouble  themselves 
about  responsibilities  ;  they  were  neither  economists  nor 
reasoners;  they  only  ascertained  that  a  heavy  hand 
weighed  upon  them  :  that  was  the  hand  of  the  J ew,  and 
the  people  rushed  upon  him.  They  did  not  rush  upon 
him  alone;  when  at  the  limit  of  their  endurance,  they 
often  attacked  all  the  rich,  indiscriminately  killing  Jews 
and  Christians  alike,  In  Gascony  and  southern  France 


112 


the  Pastoureaux  destroyed  120  Jewish  communities, 
but  the  Jews  were  not  their  only  victims;  they  invaded 
castles,  they  exterminated  the  nobles  and  the  propertied. 
In  Brabant,  the  peasants  who  besieged  Genappe,  the 
residence  of  the  Jews,  did  not  spare  their  own  corelig¬ 
ionists.  Similarly,  when  King  Armleder  raised  the 
tramps  in  the  Rhine  lands,  he  had  in  his  train  not  only 
Judenschlàger  (Jew  beaters),  but  also  slayers  of  the  rich. 
Only  that  among  the  Christians  the  propertied  alone  suf¬ 
fered  violence  at  the  hands  of  the  rebels,  the  poor  were 
spared;  among  the  Jews  the  rich  and  the  poor  were 
exterminated  indiscriminately,  for,  before  any  crime, 
they  were  guilty  of  being  Jews.  To  the  wrath  for  being 
plundered  the  mob  added  the  aversion  to  being  plun¬ 
dered  by  cursed  ones,  and  no  consideration  restrained 
the  plundered,  as  the  accursed  were  of  a  strange  race, 
forming  a  people  apart. 

At  all  events,  the  masses,  restrained  by  authority  and 
law,  rarely  attacked  the  capitalists  in  general;  to  goad 
them  on  to  revolt  a  terrible  accumulation  of  mis¬ 
eries  was  necessary.  But  with  reference  to  the  Jews  their 
ill-feeling  was  not  restrained  at  all;  on  the  contrary,  it 
was  encouraged.  This  was  a  means  to  divert  attention, 
and  every  now  and  then  kings,  nobles  or  burghers  of¬ 
fered  their  slaves  a  holocaust  of  J ews.  This  unfortunate 
Jew  was  utilized  for  two  purposes  during  the  Middle 
Ages.  They  employed  him  as  a  leech,  let  him  swell  up, 
fill  himself  with  gold,  then  they  made  him  clear  ;  or, 
whenever  popular  hatred  was  too  bitter,  he  was  subjected 
to  corporal  punishment  which  was  profitable  to  the 


113 


Christian  capitalists,  who  thus  paid  a  tribute  of  propi- 
tiary  blood  to  those  whom  they  oppressed. 

To  give  satisfaction  to  their  wretched  subjects,  the 
kings  would  from  time  to  time  proscribe  Jewish  usury, 
would  cancel  debts;  but  oftenest  they  tolerated  the  Jews, 
encouraged  them,  being  sure  to  derive  benefit  from  them 
through  confiscation  or  by  taking  their  place  as  credit¬ 
ors.  Nevertheless  these  measures  were  always  but  tem¬ 
porary,  and  governmental  anti- Judaism  was  purely  po¬ 
litical.  They  banished  the  Jews  either  to  mend  their 
finances,  or  to  elicit  the  gratitude  of  the  small  fry  by 
partly  relieving  them  of  the  heavy  burden  of  debt;  but 
they  would  soon  recall  the  Jews,  as  they  could  find  no 
better  tax  collectors.  However,  anti- Jewish  legislation 
was,  as  we  have  said,  most  frequently  forced  upon  the 
royal  power  by  the  church,  either  by  the  monks  or  the 
popes  and  synods.  Even  the  regular  clergy  and  the 
secular  clergy  acted  upon  different  principles. 

The  monks  addressed  themselves  to  the  people,  with 
whom  they  were  in  constant  touch.  In  the  first  place 
they  preached  against  the  deicides,  but  they  represented 
these  deicides  as  domineering,  while  they  should  have 
been  bent  forever  under  the  yoke  of  Christendom.  All 
these  preachers  gave  expression  to  popular  grievances. 
“If  the  Jews  fill  their  granaries  with  fruit,  their  cellar 
with  victuals,  their  bags  with  money  and  their  chests 
with  gold,”  said  Pierre  de  Cluny  i1  “it  is  neither  by  till¬ 
ing  the  earth,  nor  by  serving  in  war,  nor  by  practising 

1  Peter  the  Venerable,  abbot  of  Cluny  :  Tractatus  adversus 
Judaeorum  inveteratam  duritiatn  (Bibl.  des  Peres  Latins, 
Lyons ) , 


114 


any  other  useful  and  honorable  trade,  but  by  cheating  the 
Christians  and  buying,  at  low  price,  from  thieves  the 
things  which  they  have  stolen.”  They  overheated  the 
passions  which  needed  only  expression,  and  in  their 
homilies  and  sermons  they  laid  particular  stress  on  the 
social  side.  They  thundered  against  the  “infamous” 
nation  “which  lives  by  pillage,”  and  while  their  invec¬ 
tives  were  prompted  by  zeal  in  proselytism,  they  posed 
especially  as  avengers,  who  had  come  to  punish  “the  inso¬ 
lence,  avarice  and  hard-heartedness”  of  the  Jews.  And 
they  found  a  hearing.  In  Italy,  John  of  Capistrano,  “the 
scourge  of  the  Hebrews,”  was  stirring  up  the  poor  against 
the  usury  and  obduracy  of  the  Jews.  He  continued  his 
work  in  Germany  and  Poland,  leading  gangs  of  poor 
wretches  and  desperadoes  who  exacted  expiation 
for  their  sufferings  from  the  Jewish  communities.  Ber- 
nardinus  of  Feltre  followed  his  example,  but  he  was 
haunted  by  more  practical  notions,  among  others  by  that 
of  establishing  mont-de-piétés  to  counteract  the  rapacity 
of  the  lenders.  Pie  travelled  all  over  Italy  and  Tyro], 
demanding  the  expulsion  of  the  Hebrews,  inciting  insur¬ 
rections  and  riots,  causing  the  massacre  of  the  Jews  in 
Trent. 

The  kings,  nobles  and  bishops  did  not  encourage  this 
campaign  of  the  regulars.  They  protected  the  Jews 
from  the  monk  Radulphe,  in  Germany;  in  Italy,  they 
set  themselves  against  the  preachings  of  Bernardinus  of 
Feltre,  who  accused  the  princes  of  having  sold  them¬ 
selves  to  Yechiel  of  Pisa,  the  wealthiest  Jew  of  the  pen¬ 
insula;  in  Poland,  Pope  Gregory  XI.  stopped  the  cru¬ 
sade  of  Jan  of  Ryczywol.  The  rulers  had  everv  interest 


115 


to  suppress  these  partial  uprisings  ;  from  experience  they 
knew  that  when  the  bands  of  starvelings  were  through 
slaughtering  the  Jews,  they  would  kill  those  who  pos¬ 
sessed  too  great  wealth,  those  who  enjoyed  excessive 
privileges,  or  those  lords,  counts  or  barons,  whose 
power  weighed  too  heavily  on  the  shoulders  of  tax-payers. 
The  Pastoureaux,  the  Jacquerie,  the  faithful  followers 
of  the  Anncleders,  afterwards  the  peasants  of  Munzer, 
had  demonstrated  that  the  holders  of  power  were  not 
unreasonable  in  their  fear:  by  protecting  the  Jews  to  a 
certain  degree  they  protected  themselves. 

As  for  the  Church,  it  kept  to  theological  anti- J udaism, 
and,  being  essentially  conservative,  favoring  the' 
mighty  and  rich,  it  took  care  not  to  encourage  the  pas¬ 
sions  of  the  people.  I  speak  of  the  official  Church, 
abounding  in  prebendaries;  striving  for  unity  and  cen¬ 
tralization,  cherishing  dreams  of  universal  domination; 
the  Church  of  the  Synods,  the  law-making  Church,  and 
not  the  church  of  petty  priests  and  monks  which  was 
stirred  by  the  same  passions  as  agitated  the  lowly.  But 
if  the  church  sometimes  interfered  in  behalf  of  the  Jews 
when  they  were  the  object  of  the  mob’s  fury,  it  nursed 
this  fury  and  supplied  it  with  fuel  by  combatting  Juda¬ 
ism,  even  though  combatting  it  from  different  motives. 

Faithful  to  its  principles,  it  vainly  persecuted  the 
spirit  of  Judaism  in  all  its  forms.  It  could  not  get  rid 
of  it,  as  this  Jewish  spirit  had  inspired  it  in  its  earliest 
stages.  It  was  impregnated  with  it  as  the  beach-sands 
are  impregnated  with  the  sea-salt  which  rises  to  their 
surface,  and  despite  its  efforts  from  the  second  century 
on  to  rebuff  its  origin,  to  thrust  far  away  all  memory  of 


116 


its  original  foundation,  it  still  preserved  the  marks 
of  it.  In  seeking  to  realize  its  conception  of  Christian 
states  directed  and  ruled  over  by  the  Papacy,  the 
church  strove  to  reduce  all  anti-Christian  elements. 
Thus  it  inspired  Europe’s  violent  reaction  against  the 
Arabs,  and  the  struggle  of  the  European  nationalities 
against  Mohammedanism  was  a  struggle  at  once  political 
and  religious. 

Still  the  Moslem  danger  was  external,  but  the  internal 
dangers  threatening  the  dogma  proved  quite  as  grave  for 
the  church.  As  it  had  become  all-powerful,  as  it  had  at¬ 
tained  the  maximum  of  Catholicity,  it  gave  support  to 
heresy  less  readily;  beginning  with  the  eighth  century 
the  legislation  against  heretics  grew  more  severe.  For¬ 
merly  benign  and  confining  itself  to  canonic  penalties, 
hereafter  it  appealed  to  the  secular  powers,  and  the 
Yaudois,  Albigenses,  Beghards,  Apostolic  Brothers,  Lu- 
ciferians  were  treated  with  cruelty.  The  limit  of  this 
movement  was  reached  in  the  inquisition  which  the 
Pope  Innocent  III.  instituted  in  the  thirteenth  cen¬ 
tury.  Plenceforth,  a  special  tribunal,  backed  by  civil 
authority,  obedient  to  its  orders  was  to  be 
the  sole  judge,  and  pitiless  at  that,  of  heresy. 

The  Jews  could  not  be  overlooked  in  this  legislation. 
They  were  persecuted  not  as  Jews — the  church  wished 
to  preserve  the  Jews  as  a  living  testimony  of  its  triumph 
— but  because  they  instigated  people  to  judaization, 
either  directly  or  unconsciously,  by  the  very  fact  of  their 
existence.  Had  not  their  philosophers  sent  forth  meta¬ 
physicians  like  Amaury  de  Béne  and  David  de  Dinan? 
What  is  more,  were  not  certain  heretics  judaizing? 


117 


The  Pasagians  of  Upper  Italy  observed  the  Mosaic  law; 
the  Orleans  heresy  was  a  Jewish  heresy;  an  Albigens 
sect  maintained  that  the  doctrine  of  the  Jews  was  pref¬ 
erable  to  that  of  the  Christians;  the  Hussites  were  sup¬ 
ported  by  the  Jews;  accordingly,  the  Dominicans 
preached  against  the  Hussites  and  the  Jews,  and  the  im¬ 
perial  army  that  advanced  against  Jan  Ziska  massacred 
the  Jews  on  its  way. 

In  Spain,  where  the  mingling  of  Jews  and  Christians 
was  considerable,  the  Inquisition  was  instituted  by  Greg¬ 
ory  XI,  who  gave  it  its  constitution,  to  surveil  the  juda- 
izing  heretics  and  the  Jews  and  Moors,  who,  though  not 
subjects  of  the  Church,  were  subject  to  the  will  of  the 
Holy  Office  whenever  “by  their  words  or  their  writings 
they  urged  the  Catholics  to  embrace  their  faith.”  More 
than  that,  the  popes  recalled  the  canonic  decisions  to  the 
minds  of  the  Kings  of  Spain,  because  the  fueros,  i.  e., 
Castillian  customs  which  superseded  the  Visigothic  laws, 
had  granted  equal  rights  to  Jews,  Christians  and  Mos- 
lemites. 

All  these  ecclesiastic  measures  reinforced  the  anti- 
Jewish  sentiments  of  kings  and  nations;  they  were 
the  prime  causes  ;  they  upheld  a  special  state  of  mind, 
which  political  motives  emphasized  with  the  kings; 
social  motives — with  the  nations.  Owing  to  it,  anti- 
Judaism  became  general,  and  no  class  of  society  was  free 
from  it,  for  all  classes  were  more  or  less  guided  by  the 
Church  or  inspired  by  its  teachings,  all  of  them  were  or 
thought  themselves  harmed  by  the  Jews.  The  nobility 
took  offense  at  their  riches  ;  the  proletarians,  the  artisans 
and  peasants,  in  a  word  the  small  people,  were  provoked 


118 


by  their  usury  ;  as  for  the  bourgeoisie,  the  merchant  class, 
the  dealers  in  money,  it  was  in  permanent  rivalry  with 
the  Jews,  and  their  constant  competition  engendered 
hatred.  The  modern  contest  between  Christian  and  Jew¬ 
ish  capital  assumes  shape  in  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth 
centuries,  the  Catholic  bourgeois  looks  with  calm  eyes  on 
the  murder  of  Jews,  which  rids  him  of  an  often  success¬ 
ful  rival. 

Thus  everything  concurred  to  make  of  the  Jew  an 
universal  foe,  and  the  only  support  that  he  found  during 
this  terrible  period  of  several  centuries  was  with  the 
popes,  who,  while  abetting  the  passions  of  which 
they  made  capital,  still  wanted  to  guard  carefully  this 
witness  of  the  excellence  of  the  Christian  faith.  If  the 
Church  preserved  the  Jews,  it  often  was  not  without 
schooling  and  punishing  them.  The  Church  forbade  giv¬ 
ing  them  public  positions  that  might  confer  upon  them 
authority  over  Christians  ;  it  instigated  the  kings  to  adopt 
restrictive  measures  against  them  ;  it  imposed  upon  them 
distinctive  badges,  the  rouelle  and  hat;  it  shut  them 
in  those  ghettoes,  which  the  Jews  had  often  accepted  and 
even  sought  in  their  eagerness  to  separate  themselves 
from  the  world,  to  live  apart,  without  mixing  with  the 
nations,  to  preserve  intact  their  beliefs  and  their  race; 
so  that  in  many  points  the  edicts  bidding  the  J ews  to  re¬ 
main  confined  in  special  quarters  really  but  sanctioned 
an  already  existing  state  of  affairs.  But  the  chief  task 
of  the  Church  was  to  combat  the  Jewish  religion  dog¬ 
matically.  However,  controversies,  numerous  as  they 
were,  did  not  suffice  for  this  ;  laws  were  issued  against  the 
J ewish  books.  The  reading  of  the  Mishna  in  synagogues 


119 


had  already  been  prohibited  by  Justinian  ;-  after  him  no 
laws  were  passed  against  the  Talmud,  until  the  time  of 
Saint  Louis.  After  the  controversy  between  Nicholas 
Donin  and  Yechiel  of  Paris  (1240)  Gregory  IX  ordered 
to  burn  the  Talmud;  this  order  was  repeated  by  Inno¬ 
cent  IV  (1244),  ITonorius  IV  (1286),  John  XXII 
(1320)  and  the  anti-pope  Benedict  XIII  (1415).  More¬ 
over,  the  Jewish  prayers  were  expurgated  and  the  erec¬ 
tion  of  new  synagogues  was  forbidden. 

The  civil  lav/s  expounded  the  ecclesiastical  decrees  and 
were  inspired  by  them,  as,  e.  g.,  the  laws  of  x41fonso 
X  of  Castile,  in  the  code  of  Siete  Partidas /  the  disposi¬ 
tions  of  Saint  Louis,  those  of  Phillip  IV,  those  of  the 
German  emperors  and  the  Polish  kings.1 2  The  Jews  were 
forbidden  to  appear  in  public  on  certain  days;  a  personal 
toll  was  imposed  upon  them  as  if  on  cattle;  they  were 
sometimes  forbidden  to  marry  without  authorization. 

To  the  laws  one  must  add  the  customs — vexatious  cus¬ 
toms — like  that  of  Toulouse,  which  made  the  syndic  of 
the  Jews  subject  to  boxing  on  the  ear.  The  mob  insulted 
them  during  their  holidays  and  sabbaths;  it  profaned 
their  cemeteries  ;  on  leaving  the  Mysteries  and  Passion 
plays  it  would  lay  their  houses  waste. 

Not  content  with  vexing  them,  with  expelling  them, 
as  did  Edward  I  in  England  (1287),  Phillip  IV  and 
Charles  VI  in  France  (1306  and  1394),  Ferdinand  the 
Catholic  in  Spain  (1492),  they  killed  the  Jews  every¬ 
where. 

1  Novellae,  146. 

1  Title  XXIV. 

2  General  Statute  of  Ladislas  Jagellon .  Art.  XIX. 


120 


When  on  their  way  to  liberate  the  Holy  Tomb,  the  Cru¬ 
saders  prepared  themselves  for  the  Holy  War  by  the  im¬ 
molation  of  Jews;  whenever  the  black  plague  or  a 
famine  raged,  the  Jews  were  sacrificed  in  holocaust  to 
the  angered  divinity  ;  whenever  extortions,  misery,  hun¬ 
ger,  destitution  maddened  the  people,  they  would 
avenge  themselves  on  the  Jews,  who  were  made  victims 
of  expiation.  “What’s  the  use  of  going  to  fight  the  Mo¬ 
hammedans,”  cried  Pierre  de  Cluny,1  “when  we  have 
among  us  the  Jews,  who  are  worse  than  the  Saracens?” 

What  was  to  be  done  against  an  epidemic  unless  to  kill 
the  Jews  who  conspired  with  the  lepers  to  poison  the 
wells  ?  And  so  they  were  exterminated  in  York  and  Lon¬ 
don;  in  Spain  at  the  instigation  of  St.  Vincent  Ferrer; 
in  Italy,  where  John  of  Capistrano  preached;  in  Poland, 
Bohemia,  France,  Moravia,  Austria.  They  were  burned 
in  Strassburg,  Mayence,  Troyes.  In  Spain  the  Marranos 
mounted  the  scaffold  by  the  thousands;  elsewhere  they 
were  ripped  open  with  pitchforks  and  scythes  ;  they  were 
beaten  to  death  like  dogs. 

Surely  the  prophets  who  had  called  upon  Judah — in 
punishment  for  his  crimes — the  terrible  wrath  of  God, 
had  never  dreamed  of  more  frightful  misfortunes  than 
those  that  befell  him.  When  reading  the  Jewish  martyr- 
ology,  such  as  the  Avignonian,  Ha-Cohen,2  lamented  in 
the  sixteenth  century,  the  martyrolog}^  which  extends 
from  Akiba,  torn  to  pieces  by  iron  curry-combs,  on  to  the 
executed  of  Ancona  praying  in  the  flames,  to  the  heroes 

1  Loc.  cit. 

2  Emek-ha-Bacha,  La  Vallee  des  Pleurs.  Translated  by  Julien 
See. 


121 


of  Yitry  who  immolated  themselves,  one  is  overcome  with 
pity.  The  Valley  of  Tears  is  the  name  of  the  book  which 
sounded  the  call  for  mourning.  “1  have  called  it  The 
Valley  of  Tears  ”  says  the  ancient  chronicler,  “because  it 
is  the  proper  title  for  it.  Whoever  reads  it  will  gasp  for 
breath,  his  eyes  will  suffuse  with  tears,  and  with  hands 
on  his  loins  he  will  exclaim  :  ‘How  long,  0  my  Lord  V  ” 

What  crimes  could  have  deserved  such  frightful  pun¬ 
ishments  ?  How  poignant  must  have  been  the  afflictions 
of  those  beings  !  In  those  evil  hours  they  cuddled  one 
to  the  other  and  felt  themselves  brethren  ;  the  bond  that 
joined  them  was  fastened  more  tightly.  To  whom  could 
they  tell  their  plaints  and  their  feeble  joys,  if  not  to 
themselves  ?  From  these  general  desolations,  from  these 
sobs  was  born  an  intense  and  suffering  brotherhood.  The 
ancient  Jewish  patriotism  became  still  more  exalted.  ' 
These  outcasts,  maltreated  all  over  Europe,  and  march¬ 
ing  with  bespattered  faces,  got  it  into  their  heads  to  feel 
Zion  and  its  hills  brought  back  to  life,  to  conjure  up 
— what  a  supreme  and  sweet  consolation  ! — the  beloved 
banks  of  the  Jordan  and  the  lake  of  Galilee;  they  arrived 
there  through  an  intense  solidarity.  Amidst  the  groans 
and  oppressions  they  were  forced  more  than  ever  to  live 
among  themselves  and  to  band  more  closely.  For  did 
they  not  know  that  on  their  journeys  they  would  find  a 
safe  refuge  with  the  Jew  only,  that  if  sickness  befell 
them  on  the  way,  a  Jew  alone  would  help  them  like  a 
brother,  and  that  if  they  died  far  from  theirs,  J ews  alone  * 
could  bury  them  according  to  their  rites  and  say  the  cus¬ 
tomary  prayers  over  their  bodies  ? 

Still,  to  understand  exactly  the  position  of  the  Jews 


122 


during  these  Dark  Ages,  one  must  compare  it  with  that 
of  the  people  surrounding  them.  The  persecutions  of  the 
Jews  would  go  on  now  that  their  exclusive  character 
would  render  them  more  sorrowful.  In  the  Middle  Ages 
the  proletarians  and  the  peasants  were  not  much  better 
off;  after  being  shaken  up  by  terrible  upheavals,  the  Jews 
would  enjoy  periods  of  comparative  tranquillity,  of 
which  the  serfs  knew  nothing.  Steps  were  taken  against 
them,  but  what  steps  were  not  taken  against  the  Moris- 
coes,  the  Hussites,  the  Albigenses,  the  Pastoureaux,  the 
Jacques,  against  the  heretics  and  the  outcasts?  From 
the  eleventh  to  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century,  abomi¬ 
nable  vears  fell  out,  and  the  Jewrs  suffered  from  it  not 
a  whit  more  than  did  those  among  whom  they  lived. 
They  suffered  for  other  reasons,  and  traces  of  it  were 
left  impressed  in  a  different  way.  But  as  the  man¬ 
ners  had  grown  softer,  hours  of  greater  happiness  for 
them  were  born.  We  shall  see  what  changes  the  Refor¬ 
mation  and  the  Renaissance  were  to  bring  about  in  their 
position. 


—  123  — 


CHAPTER  VI. 

ANTI-JUDAISM  FROM  THE  TIME  OF  THE  REFORMATION 
TILL  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 

Position  of  the  Jews  at  the  Beginning  of  the  Sixteenth 
Century. — Defeat  of  the  Moors. — Banishment  from 
Spain. — Softening  of  the  Manners. — The  Last  Per¬ 
secutions. — The  Inquisition  in  Portugal. — The  Ren¬ 
aissance  and  the  Reformation  of  the  Church. — The 
Attacks  upon  the  Supremacy  of  Rome. — The  Hu¬ 
manists  and  the  Talmud. — Reuchlin  and  Pfeffer- 
korn. — The  Reformation  and  the  Jewish  Sjnrit. — 
The  Bible. — Luther  and  the  Jews. — Transforma¬ 
tion  of  the  Social  and  the  Religious  Question. — The 
Peasant  Wars. — The  Jews  no  Longer  the  Chief  Ene¬ 
mies  of  the  Church. — The  Christian  State. — Cathol¬ 
icism,  the  Reformed  and  the  Jews. — The  Popes  and 
Judaism. — Measures  Against  the  Talmud  and  Con¬ 
versions. — Anti-J  ewish  Legislation. — Molestations 
and  Outrages. — Dogmatic  Anti- Judaism. — The  Re¬ 
calling  of  the  Jews. — The  Jews  of  Europe  in  the 
Eighteenth  Century. — The  Jews  in  the  Nether¬ 
lands,  England,  Poland,  Turkey. — The  Portuguese 
Jews  in  France. — The  Intellectual  and  Moral  Con¬ 
dition  of  the  Jews. — Kabbalism  and  Messianism. — 
Sabbatai  Zevi  and  Franck. — The  Mystic  Sects  :  the 
Chassidim  and  New-Chassidim,  the  Donmeh  and 
the  Trinitarians. — Talmudism. — Joseph  Caro  and 


124 


the  Schulchan  Aruch ;  the  Pilpul. — Jewish  Reaction 
Against  the  Talmud. — Mardochee-Kolkos,  Uriel 
Acosta,  Spinoza. — Mendelssohn,  the  Meassef  and 
the  Jewish  Emancipation. — Humanitarian  Philos¬ 
ophy  and  the  Jews. — The  Social  State  and  the  Jews. 
— The  Economic  and  the  Political  Objections. — 
Maury  and  Clermont-Tonnerre;  Rewbel  and  Gré¬ 
goire. — The  Revolution. — The  Appearance  of  the 
Jews  in  Society. 

When  the  first  bream  of  freedom  swept  over  the  world 
at  the  dawn  of  the  sixteenth  century,  the  Jews  were  but 
a  nation  of  captives  and  slaves.  Cooped  up  in  the  ghet- 
toes,  whose  walls  their  own  foolish  hands  helped  only  to 
make  thicker,  they  were  retired  from  human  society, 
and,  for  the  most  part,  lived  in  a  state  of  lamentable  and 
heartrending  abjection.  Their  intellect  had  become  atro¬ 
phied,  as  they  had  themselves  barred  all  the  doors  and 
shut  all  the  windows  through  which  air  and  light  might 
have  come  to  them.  Under  the  influence  of  the  sur¬ 
rounding  nations,  special  and  disgraceful  legislations, 
under  the  depressing  and  baneful  influence  of  the  Tal¬ 
mudists,  they  had  acquired  during  the  whole  of  the  Mid¬ 
dle  Ages  that  specific  physiognomy,  which  they  have 
lost  in  our  days  only,  and  which  many  still  preserve  in 
Poland,  Rumania,  Russia,  Hungary,  Bohemia  and  sev¬ 
eral  parts  of  Germany;  a  physiognomy  which  habitual 
humility  had  rendered  base  and  obsequious,  "which  the 
circumstances  of  existence  had  made  fearsome  and  sicklv, 
which  the  exclusive  instruction  by  rabbis  had  imprinted 
with  cunning  and  hypocrisy,  but  which  suffering  had  re- 


125 


fined,  at  times  illumed  with  passive  sadness  and  sorrow¬ 
ful  resignation.  The  number  of  those  who  had  escaped 
this  abasement  was  very  limited,  and  the  Jews  who  suc¬ 
ceeded  in  keeping  a  free  brain  and  proud  spirit  were  in 
the  lowest  minority.  These  were  mostly  physicians,  as 
medicine  is  the  only  science  permitted  by  the  Talmud; 
at  the  same  time  there  were  philosophers  occasionally, 
and  we  shall  see  the  role  they  played  in  Italy  during  the 
Renaissance.  As  for  the  mass  of  the  Jews  they  had  no 
capabilities  for  anything  outside  of  commerce  and  usury. 
However,  they  had  no  rights  whatever,  no  capacities,  no 
road  was  open  to  them,  and  the  few  paths  which  they 
could  still  take  were  closed  for  them  by  their  own  doctors, 
who  thus  acted  as  allies  of  the  Christian  legists. 

These  latter  had  been  inspired  in  their  work  by  the 
Church  doctrines  which  Thomas  Aquinas  had  expressed, 
in  such  bold  relief.  Judaei  sunt  servi,  the  master  said 
energetically;  the  law  considered  them  in  no  other  wise. 
Toward  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century,  the  Jew  had 
become  the  serf  of  the  Imperial  Chamber  in  Germany;  in 
France  he  was  the  king’s  serf,  the  serf  of  the  lord,  less 
even  than  a  serf,  for  a  serf  could  still  own  something, 
while  a  Jew  in  reality  had  no  property;  he  was  a  thing 
rather  than  a  person.  The  king  and  the  lord,  the  bishop 
or  the  abbot,  could  dispose  of  all  his  belongings,  i.  e.}  of 
all  that  seemed  to  belong  to  him,  since  for  him  the  possi¬ 
bility  of  owning  was  purely  fictitious.  He  was  taxable 
at  will;  he  was  subjected  to  fixed  imposts,  without  prej¬ 
udice  to  confiscations,  and  while,  on  the  one  hand,  the 
Church  was  making  exery  effort  to  attract  to  it  the  J ew, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  baron  and  church  dignitaries  kept 


126 


him  in  his  condition.  If  he  turned  to  Christianity  he 
lost  his  possessions  in  favor  of  the  lord,  who  was  anxious 
to  make  good  the  loss  of  the  taxes  which  he  could  no 
longer  levy  on  the  convert,  and  thus  it  was  to  his  interest 
to  remain  in  the  slaves’  prison.  He  was  looked  upon  as 
a  beast,  impure  and  useful  at  that,  as  lower  than  a  dog 
or  hog,  to  which  the  personal  toll  likened  him,  however  ; 
he  was  the  one  forever  accursed,  he  upon  whom  it  was 
lawful,  even  meritorious,  to  shower  the  blows  which  the 
Crucified  had  received  in  Pilate’s  pretorium. 

The  only  country  where  the  J ews  could  claim  the  dig¬ 
nity  of  human  beings  w^as  closed  to  them  at  the  opening 
of  the  sixteenth  century.  The  capture  of  Granada  and 
the  conquest  of  the  Moorish  Kingdom  had  deprived  the 
Jews  of  their  last  refuge.  The  whole  of  Spain  became 
Christian  on  the  day  (January  2,  1492)  when  Ferdinand 
and  Isabella  entered  the  Mohammedan  city.  The  holy 
war  of  the  Spaniards  against  the  infidels  ended  victori¬ 
ously,  and  the  Moors  in  existence  were  cruelly  persecuted 
in  spite  of  the  security  which  had  been  granted  them. 
The  victory  having  aroused  on  the  one  hand  fanaticism, 
and  the  national  sentiment  on  the  other,  Spain,  now  free 
from  the  Moors,  wished  to  get  rid  of  the  J  ews,  whom  the 
Catholic  king  and  queen  expelled  the  very  year  of  Boab- 
dil’s  fall,  while  the  Inquisition  doubled  the  severities 
against  the  Marranos  and  the  descendants  of  the  Moris- 
coes. 

Still,  the  time  of  great  sorrows  had  passed  for  the 
Jews,  notwithstanding  that  the  circumstances  to  whicli 
they  had  been  reduced  were  lamentable.  They  began  to 
descend  the  hill  which  they  had  so  laboriously  climbed, 


1  Ory 

X  V  « 


and  if  they  found  as  yet  no  complete  security  in  their 
paths,  they  met  with  more  humaneness,  more  pity.  The 
manners  soften  at  this  epoch,  the  souls  become  less 
rude,  people  actually  acquire  the  idea  of  a  human  being  ; 
this  age  when  individualism  increases,  better  under¬ 
stands  the  individuals  ;  while  personality  develops,  more 
tenderness  is  displayed  towards  the  personality  of  the 
other. 

The  Jews  felt  the  effects  of  this  state  of  mind.  Thev 
were  despised  all  the  same,  but  they  were  hated  in  a  less 
violent  way.  It  was  still  sought  to  attract  them  to  Chris¬ 
tianity,  but  that  was  by  persuasion.  They  were  banished 
from  a  good  many  cities  and  countries  ;  they  were  driven 
from  Cologne  and  Bohemia  in  the  sixteenth  century  ;  the 
trade-bodies  of  Frankfort  and  Worms,  led  by  Vincent 
Fettmilch,  forced  them  to  leave  those  cities;  but  as  serfs 
of  the  Imperial  Chamber,  they  were  efficiently  protected 
bv  their  suzerain.  If  Leopold  I  sent  them  out  of  Vienna, 
if  later  on  Maria  Theresa  expelled  them  from  Moravia, 
these  decrees  of  exile  had  but  a  temporary  effect,  their 
consequences  were  felt  but  for  a  short  time;  and  when 
the  Jews  re-entered  the  cities  by  virtue  of  undoubted 
tolerance,  they  were  not  molested.  The  massacres  of 
Franconia  and  Moravia,  the  funeral  piles  of  Prague, 
were  exceptions  in  the  sixteenth  century,  and  as  for  the 
extermination  ordered  in  Poland  by  Chmielnicki,  in  the 
seventeenth  century,  they  reached  the  Jews  by  ricochet 
only. 

Hereafter  there  have  been  no  systematic  persecutions, 
except  those  kept  up  in  Spain  against  the  Jewish  con¬ 
verts,  and  in  Portugal  when  introduced  by  the  Pope 


128 


Clement  VII,  at  the  request  of  J olm  III,  and  after  the 
massacres  of  1506.  Even  there  the  inquisition  was  in¬ 
trusted  to  the  Franciscans,  who  had  showed  themselves 
less  cruel  than  the  Spanish  Dominicans. 

Still  the  Jews  did  not  change.  Such  as  we  have  seen 
them  right  in  the  Middle  Ages,  we  find  them  also  at  the 
moment  of  the  Reformation;  morally  and  intellectually 
the  mass  of  the  Jews  was  perhaps  even  worse.  But  if 
they  had  not  changed,  those  by  their  side  had  changed. 
People  were  less  believing,  and  therefore  less  inclined  to 
detest  heretics.  Averroism  had  prepared  this  decadence 
of  faith,  and  the  part  played  by  the  Jews  in  the  spread 
of  Averroism  is  well  known;  so  that  they  thus  had 
worked  for  their  own  benefit.  The  majority  of  Averro- 
ists  were  unbelievers,  or  more  or  less  assailed  the  Chris¬ 
tian  religion.  They  were  the  direct  ancestors  of  the  men 
of  the  Eenaissance.  It  is  owing  to  them  that  the  spirit  of 
doubt,  as  well  as  the  spirit  of  investigation,  had  worked 
itself  out.  The  Florentine  platonists,  the  Italian  Aris¬ 
totelians,  the  German  humanists  came  from  them  ; 
thanks  to  them  Pomponazzo  composed  the  treatises 
against  the  immortality  of  the  soul  ;  thanks  to  them,  too, 
among  the  thinkers  of  the  sixteenth  century  sprang  up 
the  theism  which  corresponded  with  the  decadence  of 
Catholocism. 

Animated  by  such  sentiments,  the  men  of  this  period 
could  not  glow  with  religious  indignation  against  the 
Jews.  Other  preoccupations  engaged  them,  though,  and 
they  had  to  abate  two  powerful  authorities — scholasticism 
and  the  supremacy  of  Rome.  The  struggles  of  the  pre¬ 
ceding  century,  the  schism  of  the  West,  the  license  in  the 


129 


manners  of  the  clergy,  simony,  the  sale  of  benefices  and 
indulgences,  all  these  had  weakened  the  Church  and  im¬ 
paired  the  Papacy.  There  were  protests  rising  against 
them  on  all  sides.  The  authority  of  councils  was  being 
proclaimed  above  that  of  the  pope.  A  distinction  was 
made  between  the  Universal  Church,  which  was  infal¬ 
lible,  and  the  Roman  Church,  which  was  liable  to  error. 
The  seculars  and  the  regulars  were  in  dispute,  voices 
were  heard  demanding  change.  “The  clergy  must  be 
made  moral,”  said  the  Father  of  the  Vienna  Synod 
(1311).  After  them,  it  was  declared  that  it  was  neces¬ 
sary  to  reform  “the  head  and  the  limbs.”  The  move¬ 
ment  of  the  Hussites,  that  of  the  Frerots,  the  Fraticel- 
lians,  the  Beghards,  had  already  been  a  protest  against 
the  wealth  and  corruption  of  the  Church;  but  Papacy 
was  incapable  of  reform,  and  the  Reformation  had  to 
take  place  outside  of  and  against  it. 

The  Humanists  were  its  promoters.  Everything 
turned  them  away  from  Catholicism.  The  Creeks  of 
Constantinople,  fleeing  from  the  Turks,  had  brought  to 
them  the  treasures  of  the  ancient  literatures.  By  discov¬ 
ering  a  new  world  Columbus  was  to  open  for  them  un¬ 
known  horizons.  They  were  finding  new  reasons  for  com¬ 
batting  scholasticism,  that  old  servant-maid  of  the  Church. 
The  humanists  were  becoming  skeptics  and  pagans  in 
Italy,  but  in  Germany  the  emancipating  movement 
which  they  helped  to  bring  about  was  becoming  more  re¬ 
ligious.  To  beat  the  scholastics  the  humanists  of  the 
empire  became  theologians,  and  went  to  the  very 
sources  in  order  to  arm  themselves  better;  they  learned 
Hebrew,  not  as  Pico  di  Mirandola  and  the  Italians  had 


130 


done,  in  the  way  of  a  dilettant  or  out  of  love  for  knowl- 
edge,  but  in  order  to  find  therein  arguments  against  their 
opponents. 

During  these  years  which  ushered  in  the  Reformation, 
the  Jew  turned  educator,  and  taught  the  scholars  He¬ 
brew  ;  he  initiated  them  into  the  mysteries  of  the  kabbala 
after  having  opened  to  them  the  doors  of  Arabic  philos¬ 
ophy.  Against  Catholicism  he  equipped  them  with  the 
formidable  exegesis  which  the  rabbis  had  cultivated  and 
built  up  during  centuries:  the  exegesis  which  protes- 
tantism,  and  later  on  rationalism,  would  make  good  use 
of.  By  a  singular  chance  the  Jews,  who  had  consciously 
or  unconsciously  supplied  humanism  with  weapons,  had 
also  given  it  the  pretext  for  its  first  serious  battle.  The 
contest  for  or  against  the  Talmud  was  the  forerunner  of 
the  disputes  over  the  Eucharist. 

The  struggle  started  at  Cologne,  the  city  of  the  inqui¬ 
sition  and  capital  of  the  Dominicans.  A  converted  Jew, 
Joseph  Pfefferkorn,  once  more  denounced  the  Talmud 
before  the  Christian  world,  and,  with  the  aid  of  the  great 
inquisitor,  Hochstraten,  obtained  from  the  Emperor 
Maximilian  an  edict  authorizing  him  to  examine  the 
contents  of  the  Jewish  books  and  destroy  those  which 
blasphemed  the  Bible  and  the  Catholic  faith.  From  this 
decision  the  J ews  appealed  to  Maximilian,  and  succeeded 
in  having  the  power  originally  conferred  upon  Pfeffer¬ 
korn  transferred  to  the  archbishop  elector  of  Mayence. 
As  his  advisors  the  archbishop  took  the  doctors,  the 
humanists,  and  among  them  Reuchlin,  who  felt  no  un¬ 
bounded  sympathy  for  the  Jews,  having  even  attacked 
them  once  upon  a  time.  But  though  he  scorned  the  Jews 


131 


in  general,  he  was  a  hebraizer  for  all  that,  and  as  such 
was  doubtless  more  interested  in  the  Talmud  than  in  the 
inquisitorial  tribunal  with  its  arrests.  He,  therefore,  vio¬ 
lently  fought  the  projects  of  Pfefferkorn  and  the  Domin¬ 
icans,  and  not  only  declared  that  the  books  of  the  Israel¬ 
ites  ought  to  be  preserved,  but  even  maintained  that 
chairs  of  Hebrew  ought  to  be  created  in  the  universities. 
Reuchlin  was  accused  of  having  sold  himself  for  the  gold 
of  the  Jews.  He  replied  with  a  terrible  pamphlet,  The 
Mirror  of  the  Eyes ,  which  was  condemned  to  be  burned. 
Thenceforth  the  Jews,  who  were  the  original  cause  of  the 
debate,  were  forgotten,  the  humanists  and  Dominicans 
alone  occupied  the  stage,  and  the  latter  being  given  their 
final  blow  by  the  Letters  of  Obscurantists ,  were  con¬ 
demned  by  the  archbishop  of  Speyer  and  deserted  by  the 
pope,  who,  a  few  years  previous,  had  granted  the  Ant¬ 
werp  printers  the  privilege  of  printing  the  Talmud. 

But  new  times  were  approaching;  the  storm  foreseen 
by  everybody  broke  over  the  Church.  Luther  issued  at 
Wittenberg  his  ninety-five  theses,  and  Catholicism  not 
only  had  to  defend  the  position  of  its  priests,  but  was 
also  forced  to  fight  for  its  essential  tenets.  For  a  moment 
the  theologians  forgot  the  Jews,  they  even  forgot 
that  the  spreading  movement  took  its  roots  in  Hebrew 
sources.  Nevertheless,  the  Reformation  in  Germany  and 
England  as  well  was  one  of  those  movements  when  Chris¬ 
tianity  acquired  new  force  in  Jewish  sources.  The  Jew¬ 
ish  spirit  triumphed  with  Protestantism.  In  certain  re¬ 
spects  the  Reformation  was  a  return  to  the  ancient 
Ebionism  of  the  evangelic  ages.  A  great  portion  of  the 
protestant  sects  was  semi- Jewish,  the  anti-trinitarian 


132 


doctrines  were  later  preached  by  the  protestants,  by 
Michel  Servet  and  the  two  Socins  of  Sienna  among  oth¬ 
ers.  Even  in  Transylvania  anti-trinitarianism  had 
flourished  since  the  sixteenth  century,  and  Seidelius  had 
asserted  the  excellence  of  Judaism  and  of  the  Decalogue. 
The  Gospels  had  been  abandoned  for  the  Old  Testament 
and  the  Apocalypse.  The  influence  exercised  by  these 
two  books  over  the  Lutherans,  the  Calvinists  and  espe¬ 
cially  the  Reformers  and  the  English  revolutionists,  is 
well  known.  This  influence  continued  to  the  nineteenth 
century  ;  it  produced  the  Methodists,  Pietists,  and 
particularly  the  Millenaries,  the  men  of  the  Fifth  Mon¬ 
archy,  who  in  London  dreamed  with  Venner  of  a  repub¬ 
lic  and  allied  themselves  with  the  Levellers  of  John  Lil- 
burne. 

Moreover,  Protestantism,  at  its  inception  in  Germany, 
endeavored  to  win  over  the  J ews,  and  in  this  respect,  the 
analogy  between  Luther  and  Mohammed  is  striking. 
Both  had  drawn  their  teachings  from  Hebrew  sources, 
both  wished  to  have  the  remains  of  Israel  stamp  with 
approval  the  new  dogmas  which  they  were  formulating. 
This,  in  fact,  presents  the  by  no  means  least  curious  side 
of  this  nation’s  history.  While  detested,  despised,  humil¬ 
iated,  spat  upon  and  bespattered,  outraged,  martyred, 
locked  up  and  beaten,  the  Jew  is  still  the  one  from  whom 
Catholicism  expects  the  ultimate  reign  of  Jesus;  the 
Church  hopes  for  and  demands  the  return  of  the  Jews, 
which,  for  the  Church,  would  mean  the  supreme  testi¬ 
mony  of  the  truth  of  its  beliefs,  and  it  is  to  the  J  ews,  too, 
that  the  Lutherans  and  Calvinists  appeal  for  it.  It  seems 
even  as  if  the  latter  would  have  been  completely  con- 


133 


vinced  of  the  justice  of  their  cause  had  the  sons  of  Jacob 
come  to  them.  But  the  Jews  had  always  been  the  stub¬ 
born  people  of  the  Scriptures,  the  people  with  the  hard 
nape,  rebellious  against  injunctions,  tenacious,  fearlessly 
faithful  to  its  God  and  its  Law. 

Luther’s  preaching  proved  vain,  and  the  irascible 
monk  issued  a  terrible  pamphlet  against  the  J ews.1  “The 
Jews  are  brutes,”  he  said;  “their  synagogues  are  pig¬ 
sties,  they  ought  to  be  burned,  for  Moses  would  do  it,  if 
he  came  back  to  this  world.  They  drag  in  mire  the  divine 
words,  they  live  by  evil  and  plunders,  they  are  wicked 
beasts  that  ought  to  be  driven  out  like  mad  dogs.” 

In  spite  of  these  violent  outbursts  and  excitement,  in 
spite  of  the  numerous  controversies,  which  had  taken 
place  between  the  protestants  and  Jews,  the  latter  were 
not  ill-treated  in  Germany  ;  people  had  no  spare  time  to 
busy  themselves  with  them.  On  the  one  hand,  the  Luth¬ 
erans  and  Calvinists  had  their  hands  full  with  contro¬ 
versies  among  themselves  ;  the  discussions  over  the  Euch¬ 
arist,  the  impanation  and  invination  over  the  trinity  and 
the  nature  of  Christ,  sufficiently  engaged  their  minds, 
and  the  sects  were  so  numerous — Crypto-calvinists  and 
Antinomists,  Adiaphorists  and  Majorists,  Osiandrists 
and  Synergists,  Memnonites  and  Synerchists,  etc. — that 
the  struggle  of  one  with  the  other  had  to  absorb  all  their 
activity.  On  the  other  hand,  the  social  and  religious 
conditions  had  quite  changed,  and  this  change  was  ad¬ 
vantageous  to  the  Jews,  who  saw  other  preoccupations 
keep  their  enemies  busy. 

Overwhelmed  with  miseries,  decimated  by  war,  ruined, 


1  The  Jews  and  their  Lies.  Wittenberg,  1558. 


134 


reduced  to  slavery,  a  prey  to  destitution  and  famine,  the 
peasants  of  the  sixteenth  century  no  longer  went  for  the 
Jewish  money-lender  or  the  Christian  usurer,  but  they 
aimed  higher;  they  attacked  in  the  first  place  a  whole 
class — of  the  rich — and  then  the  social  order  as  a  whole. 
The  revolt  was  general;  at  first  it  was  the  peasants  of 
the  Netherlands,  then,  and  chiefly,  those  of  Germany. 
All  over  the  Empire  they  founded  secret  societies,  the 
Bundschuli /  the  Poor  Conrad,  the  Evangelic  Confeder¬ 
ation.  The  peasants  of  Speyer  and  of  the  banks  of  the 
Rhine  rose  in  1503;  the  bands  of  Joss  Eritz,  in  1512; 
the  peasants  of  Austria  and  Hungary,  in  1515  ;  those  of 
Suabia,  in  1524;  those  of  Suabia,  Alsace  and  the  Palat¬ 
inate,  in  1525.  All  marched  with  the  battle  cry:  “In 
Christ  there  is  no  longer  master  or  slave.”  The  trades¬ 
men  joined  them;  knights,  like  Goetz  von  Berlichingen, 
placed  themselves  at  their  head,  and  they  massacred  the 
nobles  and  set  the  castles  and  convents  on  fire. 

Munzer  went  even  further  ;  he  fought  not  only  against 
the  barons,  bishops  and  the  rich,  those  “Kings  of  Moab,” 
but  also  against  the  very  principle  of  authority.  “No 
more  authority,”  he  cried,  “but  that  which  is  accepted 
and  freely  chosen.”  In  the  code  of  twelve  articles  which 
he  edited,  he  wanted  the  enfranchisement  of  the  serfs, 
and  when  he  mounted  the  scaffold  on  having  lost  the  bat¬ 
tle  of  Frankenstein,  he  testified  that  it  had  been  his 
desire  to  “establish  equality  in  Christendom;  that  all 
things  should  be  common  and  each  and  all  have  accord¬ 
ing  to  need.”  The  twelve  articles  were  translated  into 
French,  and  were  spread  abroad  in  Lorraine,  where  the 


1The  confederate  shoe. 


135 


peasants  rose  up,  too,  at  the  moment  when  Hutter  and 
Gabriel  Scherding  were  going  to  establish  the  communi¬ 
ties  of  Moravia,  when  anabaptism  was  spreading  in 
Switzerland,  in  Bohemia  and  in  the  Netherlands.  In 
this  formidable  movement  which  convulsed  a  part  of 
Europe  until  1535,  everywhere  leaving  deep  traces,  the 
Jews  had  been  neglected,  they  had  ceased  to  be  the 
scapegoat,  and  the  poor  wretches,  famished  and  misera¬ 
ble,  no  longer  fell  upon  them. 

Were  they  as  happy  in  the  Catholic  countries?  Yes, 
for  there,  too,  they  ceased  to  be  the  chief  and  sole  ene¬ 
mies  of  the  Church,  and  it  was  no  longer  they  that  were 
feared. 

The  Protestants  made  people  forget  the  Jews;  the 
Protestants’  existence  threatened  the  ancient  conception 
of  the  Catholic  State,  and  this  secular  conception  brought 
upon  the  Protestants  of  Prance,  Italy  and  Spain  perse¬ 
cutions  identical  with  those  which  the  Jews  had  once  un¬ 
dergone. 

Still,  after  the  council  of  Trent,  the  reformed  papacy 
once  more  turned  to  the  Jews.  The  relaxation  of  relig¬ 
ious  ideas  brought  in  Italy  a  rapprochement  between  a 
certain  class  of  Jews  and  the  various  classes  of  society. 
First,  the  humanists,  the  poets,  visited  the  Jewish  schol¬ 
ars,  philosophers  and  physicians.  This  familiarity  had 
begun  in  the  fourteenth  century,  when  Dante  was  seen  to 
have  for  his  friend  the  J ew  Manoello,  the  cousin  of  the 
philosopher  Giuda  Romano  ;  it  continued  in  the  fifteenth 
and  the  sixteenth  centuries.  Alemani  was  the  teacher  of 
Picondi  Mirandola,  Elias  del  Medigo  publicly  taught 
metaphysics  in  Padua  and  Florence,  Leo  the  Hebrew 


136 


published  his  platonic  dialogues  on  love.  The  Jewish 
printers,  like  the  scholar  Soncino,  were  in  constant  touch 
with  the  literature  of  the  period;  his  library  was  the 
centre  of  Hebrew  publications,  and  he  even  rivalled  Aldo 
by  publishing  Greek  authors.  Hercules  Gonzago,  bishop 
of  Mantua  and  disciple  of  the  Jew  Pomponazzo  of  Bolog¬ 
na,  accepted  the  dedication  of  Jacob  Mantino,  who  had 
translated  the  Compendium  of  Averroes,  while  other 
princes  encouraged  Abraham  de  Balmes  in  his  work  of 
translation.1  And  not  only  the  skeptical,  even  unbeliev¬ 
ing  faction,  of  the  Hellenists  and  Latinists,  worshippers 
of  Zeus  and  Aphrodite  more  than  of  J esus,  were  on  good 
terms  with  the  Jews,  but  the  lord  and  the  bourgeois  were 
likewise.  “There  are,”  says  the  bishop  Maiol,  “persons, 
and  often  persons  of  quality,  both  men  and  women,  who 
are  so  foolish  and  senseless  as  to  take  counsel  with  Jews 
over  their  most  intimate  affairs,  to  their  own  detriment. 
They  (the  Jews)  are  seen  visiting  the  houses  and  palaces 
of  the  great  ones,  the  dwellings  of  officers,  councillors, 
secretaries,  gentlemen,  both  in  the  city  and  country.” 
People  did  not  content  themselves  with  receiving  Jews, 
they  went  to  their  houses,  and,  what  is  more,  attended 
their  religious  ceremonies.  “There  are  among  us,”  says 
again  Maiol,  “some  who  visit  and  superstitiously  revere 
the  synagogues”;  and,  addressing  them,  he  exclaims: 
“You  hear  the  Jews  blow  their  trumpets  on  the  days  of 
their  festivities,  and  you  run  with  your  families  to  look 
at  them.”  Thus  it  went  on  during  the  seventeenth  cen¬ 
tury.  In  Perrara  they  went  to  hear  the  sermons  of  Judah 

1  Abraham  de  Balmes  translated  into  Latin  the  greatest  part 
of  Averroes’s  writings,  and  his  translations  were  in  use  in  the 
Italian  universities  until  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century. 


137 


Azael,  and,  in  1676,  Innocent  XI  threatened  with  ex¬ 
communication  and  a  fine  of  fifteen  ducats  those  who 
frequented  the  synagogues.  Did  then  the  popes  still  fear 
the  Jewish  influence  over  their  believers?  After  the  ter¬ 
rible  shock  which  had  just  disturbed  the  Church,  they 
more  than  ever  wished  to  guarantee  security  to  the  Cath¬ 
olic  dogma.  “The  Talmud  might  be  upheld, ”  the  Coun¬ 
cil  of  Trent  decreed,  “if  the  wrong  it  contains  were  re¬ 
moved;  for  portions  of  the  Talmud  can  serve  to  defend 
the  faith  and  to  prove  to  the  Jews  their  obstinacy.1'  The 
popes  were  of  a  different  opinion.  Julius  III  had  the 
Talmud  burned  in  Rome  and  Venice  upon  denunciation 
by  Solomon  Romano,  a  converted  Jew;  Paul  IV  con¬ 
demned  it  again  at  the  request  of  another  convert,  Vit¬ 
torio  Eliano  ;  Pius  V  and  Clement  VIII  did  likewise. 

During  the  dogmatic  and  theological  reaction  which 
followed  the  Reformation,  the  Roman  Church,  friendly  to 
the  J ews  heretofore,  came  to  be  the  only  government,  al¬ 
most  the  only  power,  systematically  to  persecute  Juda¬ 
ism.  Paul  IV  revived  the  ancient  canonic  laws  and 
had  the  Marranos  burned;  Pius  V  banished 
the  Jews  from  his  domains,  except  from  Rome  and  An¬ 
cona,  after  having  issued  his  Constitution  against  the 
Jews,  while  the  Spaniards,  as  they  penetrated  further 
into  Italy,  were  driving  them  from  Naples,  Genoa  and 
Milan. 

Another  concern  engaged  the  Church  at  all  events. 
To  persecute  the  Jews  and  burn  their  books  was  good; 
to  convert  them  was  better.  This  had  been  the  constant 
preoccupation  of  the  theologians,  Christian  doctors  and 
the  fathers.  In  the  fifteenth  century,  the  councils  were 


138 


busying  themselves  with  the  conversion  of  the  Jews.  The 
Basel  Council  had  ordered  preaching  to  the  J ews  in  Ger¬ 
many,  and  granted  important  privileges  to  the  converts. 
The  popes  of  the  sixteenth  century  compelled  the  Jews 
to  attend  certain  sermons  and  there  had  the  good  word 
preached  to  them  by  their  own  apostates.  A  third  of  the 
Jews  of  Rome  had  to  be  present  in  turn  at  the  sermons. 
And  while  Sadolet  was  limiting  at  Avignon  the  pontif¬ 
ical  privileges  accorded  the  Jews,  while  a  tax  of  ten 
ducats  per  year  was  levied  on  synagogues  for  the  instruc¬ 
tion  of  those  who  intended  to  abjure  Judaism,  Paul  IV 
was  building  houses  of  refuge  where  catechumens  were 
fed,  dressed  and  cared  for. 

The  other  sovereigns  had  not  the  same  motives  as  the 
popes  to  attend  to  the  J  ews.  And  so,  from  the  sixteenth 
century  on,  legislation  against  the  Jews  ceased.  We  find 
only  the  edict  of  Ferdinand  I  against  Jewish  usury — in 
Germany;  a  few  decrees  in  Poland,  and  much  later,  the 
prohibitions  of  Louis  XY  and  Louis  XVI.  Again  to  find 
anti- Jewish  legislation,  it  will  be  necessary  to  study 
modern  Russia,  Rumania  and  Servia,  which  we  shall 
shortly  do. 

Anti- J udaism  consisted  chiefly  in  molestations  and  out¬ 
rages.  The  populace  delighted  in  jeering  the  Jews,  and 
the  grandees  often  gave  them  a  chance  to  do  it.  Leo  X, 
that  ostentatious  pontiff,  who  was  fond  of  buffoonery — 
he  had  at  his  side  two  monks  to  divert  him  with  their 
pleasantries — would  order  races  between  J  ews,  and,  being 
very  shortsighted,  would  watch  them,  glass  in  hand,  from 
the  heights  of  his  balconies.  During  the  carnival  in 
Rome  the  people  would  parody  the  burial  of  rabbis,  and 


139 


a  Jew  would  be  marched  through  the  city  streets, 
mounted  backward  on  a  donkey  and  holding  the  ani¬ 
mal’s  tail  in  his  hand.1  On  the  ghetto-gates  a  sow  was 
carved,  and  they  were  often  covered  with  obscene  groups, 
in  which  rabbis  were  represented.2  The  sow  symbolized 
the  synagogue — exactly  as  with  the  Israelites  the  Roman 
Church  was  designated  by  the  Hebrew  name  for  hog — 
and  the  Jews  were  constantly  reminded  of  it;  a  painter 
once  even  related  at  Wagenseil  how  he  had  painted  a  sow 
on  the  door-leaf  of  the  arch  of  a  synagogue  which  he  was 
engaged  to  adorn. 

With  the  scholars,  the  learned  and  the  theologians, 
anti- Judaism  was  becoming  dogmatic  and  theoretical. 
True  they  wanted  to  bring  the  Jews  back,  but  by  soft 
measures.  It  was  no  longer  a  question  of  burning  their 
books,  but  of  translating  them.  It  was  said  that  now 
that  the  Christian  faith  had  struck  deep  enough  roots, 
there  was  no  danger  to  believers  from  publishing  He¬ 
brew  books,  as  had  been  done  in  the  case  of  those  of  the 


1  E.  Rodocanachi  :  Le  Saint-Siege  et  les  Juifs.  Paris,  1891. 

2  Luther  :  Tractatus  de  Schemhamphorasch.  Altenburg  {Opera, 
V.  VIII).  These  obscene  groups  were  called  Schemhamephor- 
asch.  Its  origin  is  as  follows  :  these  words  Schemhamephor- 
asch  mean  “the  name  of  God  distinctly  pronounced,  the  quadril¬ 
lerai  name  written  and  read  with  the  four  letters  :  yod,  he,  wau, 
he.”  (Munk,  Translation  of  the  Guide  of  the  Perplexed,  v.  I, 
p.  267,  note  3).  This  is  the  name  of  which  Maimonides  says: 
“Before  the  creation  of  the  world  there  were  but  the  Most  Holy 
One  and  His  Name  only.”  ( Guide  of  the  Perplexed,  v.  I,  ch. 
61).  This  was  the  mysterious  name  ;  a  magic  power  was  ascribed 
to  it,  and  the  rabbis  dressed  up  as  magicians,  who  were  repre¬ 
sented  on  the  groups  I  have  just  mentioned,  were  understood 
to  reveal  the  Name  to  the  sow.  Hence  the  appellation  Schem- 
hamephorasch. 


140 


Arians  and  other  heretics.  Thus  it  would  be  possible  to 
know  the  polemic  practices  of  the  Israelites,  and  it  would 
thus  be  possible  successfully  to  combat  them. 

This  study  brought  about  a  result  quite  different  from 
that  expected.  By  scrutinizing  the  Jewish  spirit  one 
came  nearer  to  the  J ews,  and  thereby  became  more  sym¬ 
pathizing  with  them.  Men,  like  Bichard  Simon,  e.  g., 
who  had  prepared  themselves  for  scientific  exegesis, 
through  talmudists  and  hebraizing  researches,  could  not 
look  with  hatred  upon  those  from  whom  they  held  their 
knowledge.  Others  were  anxious  to  know  when  the  J ews 
would  be  called  to  Christian  communion.  The  seven¬ 
teenth  century  was  the  most  propitious  time  for  the  dis¬ 
putes  over  the  recalling  of  the  Jews.  In  France  this 
question  as  to  whether  the  J  ews  would  be  recalled  at  the 
end  of  the  world  or  before  it — divided  Bossuet  and  the 
Figurists  led  by  Duguet.1  In  England  the  Millenaries 
proclaimed  the  return  of  the  Jews.2  They  flourished 
particularly  in  the  eighteenth  century,  in  which  Worth¬ 
ington,  Bellamy,  Winchester  and  Towers  described  the 
approaching  times  of  the  millenium.  In  Germany  also 
this  opinion  had  its  advocates,  such  as  Bengel,  e.  g.  In 
France,  not  only  did  the  convulsionaries  of  Saint-Menard 
proclaim  the  approaching  entry  of  the  Jews  into  the 
Church,  but  some  were  seen  entertaining  these  dreams 

1  On  this  point  consult  Duguet,  Regies  pour  V intelligence  des 
Maintes  Ecri  ures,  1723.  Bossuet,  Discours  sur  l'Histoire  univer- 
sette,  part  II.  Rondet,  Dissertation  sur  le  rappel  des  Juifs , 
Paris,  1778.  Anonymous,  Lettre  sur  le  provche  retour  des 
Juifs,  Paris,  1789,  etc. 

2  Grégoire,  Histoire  des  sectes  religieuses,  v.  II  (Paris,  1825). 


141 


until  our  days,  and  in  1809  President  Agier  fixed  upon 
1849  as  the  year  of  the  conversion  of  the  Jews. 

All  over  Europe  the  Jews  enjoyed  the  greatest  tran¬ 
quillity  during  the  eighteenth  century.  In  Poland  alone 
they  fared  badly  for  having  once  lived  too  well.  They 
had  been  prosperous  there  up  to  the  middle  of  the  seven¬ 
teenth  century.  Rich,  powerful,  they  had  lived  on  an 
equal  footing  with  the  Christians,  treated  as  though  of 
the  people  amid  whom  they  lived;  but  they  could  not 
help  giving  themselves  up  to  their  usual  commerce,  their 
vices,  their  passion  for  gold.  Dominated  by  the  Tal¬ 
mudists  they  succeeded  in  producing  nothing  beyond 
commentators  of  the  Talmud.  They  were  tax  collectors, 
spirit — distillers,  usurers,  seigneurial  stewards.  They 
were  the  noblemen’s  allies  in  their  abominable  work  of 
oppression,  and  when  the  Cossacks  of  Ukraina  and  Little 
Russia  had  risen,  under  Chmielnicki,  against  Polish 
tyranny,  the  Jews,  as  accomplices  of  the  lords,  were  the 
first  to  be  massacred.  It  is  said  that  over  100,000  of 
them  were  killed  in  ten  years,  but  just  as  many  Catholics 
and  especially  Jesuits,  were  killed  as  well. 

Elsewhere  they  were  very  prosperous.  Thus,  in  the 
Ottoman  Empire,  they  were  simply  liable  to  the  tax  on 
foreigners  and  subject  to  no  other  restrictive  regulations, 
but  nowhere  was  their  prosperity  so  great  as  in  the 
Netherlands  and  England.  Marranos  fleeing  the  Span¬ 
ish  Inquisition  had  settled  in  the  Netherlands  in  1593, 
and  thence  settled  a  colony  in  Hamburg,  then,  later  on, 
under  Cromwell,  one  in  England,  whence  they  had  been 
banished  for  centuries  and  whither  Menasse-ben-Israel 
brought  them  back.  The  Dutch,  as  practical  and  cir- 


142 


cumspect  a  people  as  the  English,  utilized  the  commer¬ 
cial  genius  of  the  Jews  and  turned  it  to  their  own  en¬ 
richment.  Besides,  indisputable  affinities  existed  be¬ 
tween  the  spirit  of  these  nations  and  the  Jewish 
spirit,  between  the  Israelite  and  the  positive  Dutchman 
or  the  Englishman,  whose  character,  as  Emerson  says, 
can  be  brought  to  an  irreducible  dualism,  which  makes 
his  nation  one  of  greatest  dreamers  and  most  prac¬ 
tical  people,  a  thing  which  may  be  said  of  Jews  as  well. 

In  France  Henry  II.  had  authorized  the  Portuguese 
Jews  to  settle  in  Bordeaux,  where,  on  the  strength  of 
the  granted  privileges,  confirmed  also  by  Henry  III., 
Louis  XIV.,  Louis  XV.  and  Louis  XVI.,  they  acquired 
great  wealth  in  maritime  commerce. 

In  the  other  cities  of  France  there  were  few  of  them, 
and,  besides,  those  residing  in  Paris  or  elsewhere  had 
settled  there  only  because  of  the  administrative  toler¬ 
ance.  In  Alsace  alone  there  was  a  great  agglomeration. 

Their  splendid  condition  provoked  no  violent  demon¬ 
strations;  now  and  then  protests  would  be  heard,  they 
would  say  with  Expilly:  “With  infinite  grief  one  sees 
how  such  base  people,  who  had  been  received  in  the  ca¬ 
pacity  of  slaves,  possess  costly  furniture,  lead  a  refined 
life,  wear  gold  and  silver  on  their  garments,  dress  show¬ 
ily,  perfume  themselves,  study  instrumental  and  vocal 
music  and  ride  horseback  for  mere  diversion.”  At  the 
same  time,  greater  and  greater  toleration  was  shown 
them  from  day  to  day;  the  world  was  drawing  nearer  to 
them.  Were  they,  in  turn,  drawing  nearer  to  the  world  ? 
Xo.  They  seemed  more  and  more  to  attach  themselves 
to  their  mystic  patriotism;  the  further  they  went,  the 


143 


more  the  dreams  of  Kabbala  haunted  them,  with  ever  re¬ 
newed  confidence  they  awaited  the  Messiah,  and  never 
had  the  pseudo-Messiahs  been  received  with  so  much 
enthusiasm  as  they  were  in  the  seventeenth  and  eigh¬ 
teenth  centuries.  The  Kabbalists  exhausted  arithmetical 
combinations  to  calculate  the  exact  date  of  the  coming 
of  him,  who  was  so  longed  for.  Toward  1666,  the  date 
most  commonly  designated  as  the  sacred  date,  all  Jews 
of  the  Orient  were  raised  by  the  preachings  of  Sabbatai 
Zevi.  From  Smyrna,  where  Sabbatai  had  proclaimed 
himself  Messiah,  the  movement  spread  to  the  Nether¬ 
lands,  and  England  even,  and  everybody  expected  the 
restoration  of  Jerusalem  and  of  the  holy  kingdom  from 
the  King  of  Kings,  as  Sabattai  was  called.  The  same 
enthusiasm  was  displayed  in  1755  when  Frank  appeared 
in  Podolia  as  the  new  Messiah.  Numerous  mystic  sects 
formed  around  all  these  enlightened  ones  :  that  of  Don- 
meh,  which  leaned  towards  the  Mohammedans;  that  of 
the  Chassidim,  of  the  New  Chassidim,  and  that  of  the 
Trinitarians,  who  approached  Christianity  in  professing 
the  dogma  of  a  God  at  once  one  and  triple.1 

These  hopes  which  the  illuminism  of  the  Kabbalists 
entertained,  helped  to  keep  the  Jews  apart,  but  those 
who  were  not  seduced  by  the  speculations  of  dreamers, 
were  weighed  down  by  the  yoke  of  the  Talmud,  a  yoke 
at  all  events  even  ruder  and  more  humiliating.  So  far 
from  decreasing,  the  Talmudic  tyranny  had  even  in¬ 
creased  since  the  sixteenth  century.  At  this  time  J oseph 
Caro  had  edited  the  Shulchan  Aruch ,  a  Talmudic  code, 


1  Peter  Beer,  Le  Judaïsme  et  ses  Sectes. 


144 


which — according  to  the  traditions  inculcated  by  the 
rabbinists — set  up  as  laws  the  opinions  of  the  doctors. 
Up  to  our  time  the  European  Jews  had  lived  under  the 
execrable  oppression  of  these  practices.1  The  Polish 
Jews  improved  even  upon  Joseph  Caro  and  refined  the 
already  enormous  subtleties  of  the  Shulchan  Aruch  by 
making  additions  thereto,  and  they  introduced  the 
method  of  Pilpul  (pepper-grains)  into  their  instruction. 

Accordingly,  as  the  world  grew  kinder  to  them,  the 
Jews — at  least  the  masses — retired  into  themselves, 
straitened  their  prison,  bound  themselves  with  tighter 
bonds.  Their  decrepitude  was  unheard  of,  their  intel¬ 
lectual  sinking  was  equalled  only  by  their  moral  debase¬ 
ment;  this  nation  seemed  dead. 

However,  the  reaction  against  the  Talmud  had  pro¬ 
ceeded  from  the  Jews  themselves.  Mordecai  Kolkos,2 
1721. 

of  Venice,  had  already  published  a  book  against  the 
Mishna;  in  the  seventeenth  century,  Uriel  Acosta3  vio¬ 
lently  fought  the  rabbis,  and  Spinoza4  exhibited  little 
affection  for  them.  But  anti-talmudism  displayed  itself 
particularly  in  the  eighteenth  century,  at  first  among 
the  mystics,  such  as,  e.  g.,  the  Zoharites,  disciples  of 
Franck,  who  declared  themselves  enemies  of  the  doc¬ 
tors  of  the  law.  At  any  rate  these  opponents  of  the 
rabbanites  were  unable  to  extricate  the  Jews  from  their 
abjection.  To  begin  this  task,  it  was  necessary  for  Moses 

1  In  Russia,  Poland  and  Galicia  they  are  extant  even  to-day. 

2  Consult  Wolf,  Bibliotheca  Hebraea,  v.  II,  p.  798.  Hamburg, 

8  Exemplar  vitae  humanae.  (Published  by  Limbroch,  1687), 

4  Tractatus  Theologico.-Politicus. 


145 


Mendelssohn,  a  Jew  and  philosopher  at  the  same  time, 
to  array  the  Bible  against  the  Talmud.  His  German 
version  (1779) — was  a  great  revolution.  It  was  the 
first  blow  dealt  to  the  rabbinical  authority.  The 
Talmudists,  too,  who  had  once  wished  to  kill  Kolkos 
and  Spinoza,  violently  attacked  Mendelssohn,  and  pro¬ 
hibited,  under  penalty  of  excommunication,  to  read  the 
Bible  which  he  had  translated. 

These  outbursts  of  rage  were  of  no  avail.  Mendels¬ 
sohn  had  followers  :  young  men,  his  disciples,  founded 
the  periodical  Meassef,  which  advocated  the  new  Juda¬ 
ism,  endeavored  to  snatch  the  Jews  from  their  ignor¬ 
ance  and  humiliation,  and  prepared  their  moral  emanci¬ 
pation.  As  for  political  emancipation,  the  humanitarian 
philosophy  of  the  eighteenth  century  was  working  hard 
to  bring  it  about.  Though  Voltaire  was  an  ardent 
Judoephobe,  the  ideas  which  he  and  the  Encyclopae¬ 
dists  represented  were  not  hostile  to  the  Jews,  as  being 
ideas  of  liberty  and  universal  equality.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  the  Jews  really  were  isolated  in  the  various 
states,  they  still  had  some  points  of  contact  with  those 
surrounding  them. 

Capitalism  had  by  this  time  developed  among  the 
nations;  stock-jobbing  and  speculation  were  born;  the 
Christian  financiers  applied  themselves  to  them  with  a 
zeal,  just  as  they  had  applied  themselves  to  usury,  just 
as  they  had,  in  the  capacity  of  farmers-general,  collected 
imposts  and  taxes.  The  J ews  could,  therefore,  take  their 
place  among  those  whom  “discounts  were  enriching  at 
the  public’s  expense,  and  who  were  masters  of  all  pos- 


146 


sessions  of  the  French  of  all  classes.”  as  already  Saint 

/  4/ 

Simon  was  saying. 

The  economic  objections  which  were  raised  against 
their  possible  emancipation  had  no  longer  the  same  im¬ 
port  as  in  the  Middle  Ages,  when  the  church  wanted  to 
make  the  Jews  the  only  representatives  of  the  class  of 
monejr-brokers.  As  for  the  political  objections,  that 
they  formed  a  State  within  the  State,  that  their  pres¬ 
ence  as  citizens  could  not  be  tolerated  in  a  Christian 
society  and  was  even  injurious  to  it,  they  remained 
valid  until  the  day  when  the  French  Revolution  dealt 
its  direct  blow  to  the  conception  of  a  Christian  State. 
And  so  Dohm,  Mirabeau,  Clermont-Tonnerre,  the  Abbot 
Grégoire  were  right  with  regard  to  Rewbel,  Maury  and 
the  Prince  de  Broglie,  and  the  Constituent  Assembly 
obeyed  the  spirit  which  had  guided  it  since  its  inception 
when  it  declared  on  September  27,  1791,  that  the  Jews 
would  enjoy  in  France  the  rights  of  actual  citizens. 
The  Jews  were  on  the  threshold  to  society. 


147 


CHAPTER  VII. 

ANT  I- J  UD  AI  C  LITERATURE  AND  THE  PREJUDICES. 

Anti- Judaism  of  the  Pen  and  its  Forms. — Theological 
Anti- Judaism. — The  Transformation  of  Christian 
Apologetics. — Judaization  and  its  Enemies. — An¬ 
selm  of  Canterbury,  Isidore  of  Seville. — Pierre  de 
Blois. — Alain  de  Lille. — The  Study  of  Jewish 
Books. — Raymond  de  Penaforte  and  the  Domini¬ 
cans. — Raymund  Martin  and  the  Pugio  Fidei. — 
Nicholas  de  Lyra  and  His  Influence. — Anti- Jewish 
Theological  Literature  and  the  Conversions. — 
Nicholas  de  Cusa. — The  Converted  Jews  and  Their 
Role. — Paul  de  Santa  Maria,  Alfonso  of  Valladolid. 
— Anti-Talmudism  and  the  Converts  :  Pfefferkorn. 
— The  Controversies  Over  the  Talmud  and  the  Jew¬ 
ish  Religion. — Controversies  of  Paris,  Barcelona 
and  Tortosa. — Nicholas  Donin,  Pablo  Christian! 
and  Geronimo  de  Santa  Fé. — The  Extractiones  Tal- 
mut. — Social  Anti-Judaism. — Agobard,  Amolon, 
Peter  the  Venerable,  Simon  Maiol. — Polemic  Anti- 
Judaism. — Alonzo  da  Spina. — Le  Livre  de  V Alb o- 
raique. — Pierre  de  Lancre. — Francisco  de  Torre- 
joncillo  and  the  Centinela  Contra  Judios. — Polemic 
Anti-Judaism  and  the  Prejudices. — The  Jews  and 
the  Accursed  Races. — Jews,  Templars  and  Sorcer¬ 
ers. — Ritual  Murder. — The  Defense  of  the  Jews. — 
Jacob  ben  Ruben,  Moses  Cohen  of  Tordesillas, 


148 


Shem-Tob  ben  Isaac  Shaprut. — Jewish  Polemic 
Literature  in  Spain  in  the  Fifteenth  Century. — 
Anti-Christianity. — Chasdai  Crescas  and  Joseph 
Ibn  Shem  Tob. — The  Attacks  Against  the  New 
Testament. — The  Nizzachon  and  The  Boole  of  Jo - 
seph  the  Zealot. — The  Toldoth  Jesho. — Attacks 
Against  the  Apostates. — Isaac  Pulgar,  Don  Vidal 
Ibn  Labi. — Transformation  of  Scriptural  Anti- 
Judaism  in  the  Seventeenth  Century. — The  Con¬ 
verters. — The  Hebraizers  and  the  Exegetists:  Bux- 
torf  and  Richard  Simon. — Wagenseil,  Voetius, 
Bartolocci. — Eisenmenger. — John  Dury. — The  Re¬ 
lationship  and  Similarity  of  Anti-Jewish  Works. 
The  Imitators. — The  Ancient  Literary  Anti- Juda¬ 
ism  and  the  Modern  Antisemitism. — Their  Affini¬ 
ties. 

We  have  studied  only  the  legal  and  the  popular  anti- 
Judaism  from  the  eighth  century  to  the  French  Revolu¬ 
tion.  We  have  seen  how  anti-Jewish  legislation,  at  first 
canonic  and  later  civil,  was  little  by  little  instituted. 
We  have  shown  how  the  populace  had  been  partly  pre¬ 
pared  by  the  decrees  of  the  popes,  kings  and  republics,  to 
hate  and  abuse  the  Jews,  and  how  far  this  exasperation 
of  the  people,  the  massacres  it  committed,  the  insults 
and  outrages  it  showered,  had  given  the  counter-blow 
to  this  legislation.  We  have  shown  that  up  to  the  fif¬ 
teenth  century,  the  accusations  weighing  over  the  Jews, 
had  grown  each  year,  so  that  they  had  reached  their 
maximum  at  this  period,  and  from  then  on  went  de¬ 
creasing,  that  the  codes  had  ceased  to  be  applied  rigor- 


149 


ously,  that  customs  had  gradually  fallen  into  disuse,  that 
few,  if  at  all,  new  laws  were  made,  and  that  the  Jew 
thus  marched  towards  liberation. 

However,  there  is  a  kind  of  anti- Judaism  to  which  we 
have  paid  no  special  attention,  and  which  we  must  here¬ 
after  examine.  While  the  Church  and  the  monarchies 
issued  laws  against  the  Jews,  the  theologians,  philoso¬ 
phers,  poets,  and  historians  were  writing  about  them.  It 
is  the  role,  the  working  and  the  importance  of  this  anti- 
Judaism  of  the  pen  that  we  still  have  to  examine. 

It  was  not  born  under  the  same  influences;  diverse 
causes  engendered  it,  and  according  to  these  causes  it 
was  theological  or  social,  dogmatic  or  even  polemic. 
Not  that  all  these  anti- Jewish  writings  can  be  classified 
under  one  category  to  the  exclusion  of  any  other  ;  on  the 
contrary,  there  are  few  of  them  that  can  be  referred  ex¬ 
clusively  to  one  of  these  types,  and  yet,  according  to  their 
principal  tendency,  they  can  be  registered  under  one  of 
the  rubrics  that  I  have  just  indicated.  Theological  anti- 
Judaism  alone  has  produced  clearly  cut  works,  written 
without  social  cares,  and  these  works,  however  little  char¬ 
acteristic  they  may  be,  may  be  dogmatic  and  polemic 
at  the  same  time. 

Theological  anti- Judaism,  chronologically  the  first, 
naturally  had  apologetic  ways  at  its  inception;  it  could 
not  be  otherwise  as  Judaism  was  fought  only  to  glorify 
the  Christian  faith  and  prove  its  excellence.  As  we  have 
said,  they  ceased  producing  apologetic  writings  towards 
the  end  of  the  fourth  century  ;  the  young  church,  in  the 
intoxication  of  its  triumph,  did  no  longer  think  it  neces¬ 
sary  to  prove  its  superiority,  and  as  representatives  of 


150 


the  apologetic  manner,  we  find  in  the  fifth  century  only 
the  Altercation  of  Simon  and  Theopilus  of  Evagrivs,1 
in  which  the  Altercation  of  Jason  and  Papiscus  of  Aris- 
to  of  Pella  was  imitated  and  even  plagiarized  ;  after  that 
one  has  to  come  to  the  seventh  century  to  find  the  three 
hooks  of  Isidore  of  Seville  directed  against  the  Jews.2 

When  scholasticism  was  born,  apologetics  reappeared. 
Scholasticism  from  its  very  start  was  a  servant-maid  of 
the  dogma,  but  a  reasoning  servant  that  attempted  to  ex¬ 
plain  the  Trinity  metaphysically,  and  the  discussions  on 
nominalism  and  realism  -were  of  such  importance  during 
the  Middle  Ages,  only  because  these  two  theories  were 
applied  to  the  interpretation  of  the  Trinity.  The  whole 
of  metaphysics  of  this  time  turned  around  the  nature 
and  divinity  of  Christ.  Hence  the  importance  for  the 
scholastic  theologians  of  defending  this  divinity  against 
those  even  who  denied  it;  and  were  not  the  Jews  just 
those  whose  denial  was  most  stubborn?  It  was  neces¬ 
sary,  therefore,  to  convince  these  obstinates,  and  thus  the 
apologies  sprang  up  again,  and  all  or  nearly  all  of  them 
were  addressed  to  the  Jews. 

They  had  two  ends  in  view:  they  defended  tlie  Cath¬ 
olic  dogmas  and  symbols,  and  they  combatted  Judaism. 
They  set  themselves  against  that  judaizing  which  the 
church,  its  doctors,  philosophers  and  apologists  had  al¬ 
ways  feared,  imagining  the  Jew  as  a  sort  of  wolf  that 
prowled  around  the  sheep-fold  in  order  to  carry  the 
sheep  away  from  a  happy  life.  These  were  the  senti- 

1  Consult  the  Spicilegium  of  Achery,  vols.  X  and  XV. 

2  Isidore  of  Seville,  De  Fide  Catholica  ex  vetere  et  novo  Testa- 
mento  contra  Judaeos  (Opera,  vol.  VII).  Migne,  P.  L.,  Ixxxiii. 


151 


ments  that  guided,  e.  g.,  Cedrenus1  and  Theophanes2 3 4 5 
when  they  wrote  their  ontra  Judaeos,  and  Gilbert 
Crépin,  abbot  of  Westminster,  in  his  Disputatio  Judei 
cum  Christiano  de  fide  Christiana J 

The  form  of  these  writings  was  little  varied;  they 
reproduced  almost  servilely  the  classic  arguments  of  the 
Fathers  of  the  Church,  and  their  wording  followed 
similar  patterns.  To  analyze  one  of  them  means  analyz¬ 
ing  all.  Thus,  e.  g.}  Pierre  de  Blois’s  Against  the  Per¬ 
fidy  of  the  Jews  A  enumerated  through  thirty  chapters 
the  testimonies  which  the  Old  Testament,  and  especially 
the  prophets,  contain  in  favor  of  the  divine  Trinity  and 
Unity,  of  the  Father  and  the  Son,  of  the  Holy  Spirit, 
of  the  Messianism  of  Jesus  Christ,  of  the  Davidic  descent 
of  the  Son  of  Man,  and  of  his  incarnation.  He  ended, 
by  proving,  on  the  basis  of  the  same  authorities,  that 
the  Law  had  been  transmitted  to  the  Gentiles,  that  the 
Jews  had  been  doomed  to  reprobation,  but  that  the  rem¬ 
nants  of  Israel  would  nevertheless  one  day  be  converted 
and  saved.  Guibert  de  Nogent,  in  his  Be  Incarnatione 
adversus  Judaeos  f  Rupert  in  his  Annulus  sivedialogus 
inter  Christianum  et  Judeum  de  fidei  sacramentis ;x 
Alain  de  Lille  in  his  De  Fide  Catholica;2  many  others 
to  enumerate  whom  would  be  tiresome,  proceeded  in  the 

'‘■Disputatio  contra  Judaeos.  Opera,  Editio  Basileensis,  p. 
180. 

2  Contra  Judaeos.  Lib.  VI. 

3  Migne,  P.  L.,  Ch.  IX. 

4  Liber  contra  perfidia  Tudaeorum.  Opera,  Paris,  1519. 

5  Opera,  Paris,  1651. 

1  Migne,  P.  L.,  CLXX. 

1  Migne,  P.  L.,  OCX. 


152 


same  way,  developing  the  same  arguments,  dwelling 
upon  the  same  texts,  resorting  to  the  same  interpreta¬ 
tions.  As  a  whole,  all  this  literature  was  one  of  extreme 
mediocrity  ;  I  know  little  that  is  more  inane,  and 
Anselm  of  Canterbury  himself  failed  to  make  it  more 
interesting  when  he  composed  his  De  Fide  seu  de  Incar- 
natione  verbis  contra  Judaeos. 

Yet  these  writings,  discussions,  fictitious  dialogues 
hardly,  if  at  all,  attained  their  object.  They  were  con¬ 
sulted  by  clergymen  only,  and  were  thus  directed  at 
converts;  rabbis  read  them  in  very  rare  cases;  their 
own  biblical  exegesis  and  science  being  much  superior 
to  those  of  the  good  monks,  these  latter  rarely  were  at 
an  advantage.  At  all  events  they  never  convinced  those 
whom  they  were  to  convince,  and  they  could  not  effec¬ 
tively  fight  the  J ews,  as  they  did  not  know  the  taldumic 
and  exegetic  commentaries,  from  which  the  Jews  drew 
their  weapons  and  forces.  Things  changed  in  the  thir¬ 
teenth  century.  The  works  of  Jewish  philosophers  had 
spread  and  exercised  considerable  influence  on  the  schol¬ 
asticism  of  the  time;  men  like  Alexandre  de  Hales  had 
read  Maimonides  (Rabbi  Moses)  and  Ibn  Gebirol  (Avi 
cebron),  and  they  bore  the  impress  of  the  teachings  ex¬ 
posed  by  the  Guide  of  the  Perplexed  and  the  Fountain 
of  Life.  Curiosity  was  awakened,  people  wanted  to  know 
Jewish  thought  and  dialectics,  at  first  for  philosophical 
motives,  then  to  fight  against  the  Jews  with  better  suc¬ 
cess. 

The  dominican  Raymond  de  Penaforte,  confessor  of 
James  I.  of  Aragon,  and  a  great  converter  of  the  Jews, 
bade  the  Dominicans  to  learn  Hebrew  and  Arabic  to  be 


153 


able  better  to  persuade  and  battle  with  the  Jews.  He 
established  schools  for  the  instruction  of  monks  in  these 
two  languages  and  was  the  pioneer  of  Hebrew  and 
Arabic  studies  in  Spain.  He  thus  started  a  line  of 
apologists  who  were  no  longer  contented  with  collecting 
the  passages  of  the  Old  Testament  that  foreshadowed 
the  Trinity  or  prophesied  the  Messiah,  but  who  endea¬ 
vored  to  refute  the  rabbinical  books  and  Talmudic  asser¬ 
tions. 

All  these  shields ,  ramparts ,  strongholds  of  faith,  a 
host  of  treatises  and  demonstrations,  came  from  this 
movement.  In  these  pamphlets  the  Jews  were  “slain 
with  their  own  glaive,”  “pierced  with  their  own  sword,” 
i.  e.,  they  were  being  convinced  of  their  ignominy  and 
convicted  of  falsehoods  by  means  of  their  owm  argumen¬ 
tation,  such  as  the  monks  found  it,  or  at  least  thought 
they  found  it,  in  the  Talmud. 

The  best  known  among  all  these  theological  lampoons 
are  those  published  by  the  dominican  Raymund  Martin, 
“a  man  as  remarkable  for  his  knowledge  of  Hebrew  and 
Arabic  writings  as  for  that  of  Latin  works.”1  These 
squibs  bear  characteristic  enough  titles  :  Capistrum 
Judaeorum  ( Muzzle  of  the  Jews )  and  Pugio  Fidei  ( Dag¬ 
ger  of  the  Faith).2  The  second  had  the  greatest  circu¬ 
lation.  “It  is  well,”  Raymund  Martin  said  therein, 
“that  the  Christians  take  in  hand  the  sword  of  their 
enemies,  the  Jews,  to  strike  them  with  it?”  Starting 

1  Augustin  Giustiniani,  Linguae  Hebreae  (1656). 

2  Pugio  Fidei  (Paris,  1651).  (Cf.  Quetif,  Bibl.  Scriptorum 
dominicanorum,  v.  I,  p.  396,  and  the  edition  of  Carpzon,  Leipzig, 

1687). 


154 


thence  and  with  this  very  wide-spread  notion  that  God 
had  given  Moses  an  oral  law  as  commentary  to  the  writ¬ 
ten  law  and  containing  the  revelation  of  the  Trinity  and 
the  divinity  of  Jesus,  Martin  tried  to  prove,  by  means 
of  Biblical,  Talmudic  and  Kabbalistic  texts,  that  the 
Messiah  had  come  and  that  the  tenets  of  Catholicism 
were  irrefutable.  In  twTo  chapters,3  he  simultaneously 
fell  upon  Judaism,  which  he  represented  as  reprobate 
and  abominable. 

During  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries  the 
Pugio  Fidei  was  quite  in  vogue  among  the  monks,  espe¬ 
cially  the  Dominicans,  ardent  defenders  of  the  faith.  It 
was  studied,  consulted,  plagiarized.  The  number  of 
writings  which  were  inspired  by  Raymund  Martin  and 
for  which  the  Pugio  Fidei  served  as  the  prototype  and 
even  mould,  was  considerable.  Among  others  those  of 
Porchet  Salvaticus,* 1  Pierre  de  Barcelona,2  and  Pietro 
Galatini3  may  be  named. 

Still  even  Martin’s  knowledge  was  not  perfect,  and 
as  we  shall  presently  see,  the  rabbis  very  often  worsted 
their  opponents  in  their  controversies.  The  anti- Jew's 
needed  better  weapons  :  the  Franciscan,  Nicholas  de  Lyra, 
supplied  them.  He  had  made  a  careful  study  of  rab¬ 
binical  literature,  and  his  hebraic  attainments,  their 
extent,  variety  and  solidity  led  to  the  belief  that  he  was 

3  Chh.  XXI-XXII,  de  Reprobatione  et  Faetore  doctrinae  Inu- 
daeorum. 

1  Victoria  adversus  impios  Hebreos  et  sacris  litteris  (Paris, 
1629).  Wolf,  Bibl.  Hebr.  v.  I,  p.  1124. 

2  Consult  Fabricius,  Bibliotheca  Latina,  on  Peter  of  Barcelona 
(Petrus  Barcinonensis) . 

3  De  Arcanis  catholicae  veritatis  libris  (Sorcino,  1518). 


155 


of  Jewish  origin,  which  is  of  little  probability.  At 
all  events,  he  was  the  precursor  of  modern  exegesis, 
which  is  the  daughter  of  Jewish  thought  and  whose  ra¬ 
tionalism  is  purely  Jewish;  he  was  the  ancestor  of 
Eichard  Simon.  Nicholas  de  Lyra  declared  that  the 
literal  explanation  of  the  text  of  the  Scriptures  should 
form  the  foundation  of  ecclesiastic  science,  and  that  the 
text  and  its  meaning  once  established  four  meanings 
should  be  derived  therefrom  :  the  literal,  allegoric,  moral 
and  anagogic.4 * 6  Nicholas  de  Lyra  expounded  his  re¬ 
searches  in  the  Postilla  and  the  Moralitates ,  collected 
and  recast  later  into  a  larger  work.  Hereafter  this  was 
the  arsenal  to  draw  upon  in  the  polemics  against  the 
Jews,  as  well  as  for  the  defense  of  the  Gospels  against 
the  Jewish  attacks,  for  Nicholas  de  Lyra  had  refuted, 
in  his  De  Messia /  the  criticisms  passed  on  the  Old  Tes¬ 
tament  by  the  Jews.  Numerous  editions  of  Nicholas 
de  Lyra’s  works  appeared,  commentaries,  notes  and  addi- 
tious  thereto  were  made,  and  in  the  matter  of  exegesis 
even  Luther  was  his  pupil. 

But  praiseworthy  as  it  was  to  combat  the  Jews,  it  was 
still  more  meritorious  to  convince  them,  and  most  of  the 
polemist  monks  did  not  forget  that  the  conversion  of 

4  Throughout  the  Middle  Ages  they  believed  in  this  fourfold 
meaning  of  the  Scriptures,  and  the  following  distict  expressed 
its  import  : 

Littera  gesta  docct,  quid  credas,  allegoria ; 

Moralis,  quid  agass  quo  tendus  anagogia. 

6  Postillae  perpetuae  in  universa  Biblia  (Rome,  1471,  vol.  5.) 

1  De  Messia,  eiusque  adventu  practerito  tractatus  una  cum 
responsione  ad  Judaei  argumenta  XIV  contra  veritateni  evan- 
geliorum  (Venice,  1481). 


156 


Judah  was  one  of  the  aims  of  the  church.  While  the 
councils  took  steps  to  convert  the  Jews,  the  writers,  on 
their  part,  endeavored  to  be  convincing,  several  of  them, 
the  more  practical,  went  so  far  as  to  seek  ground  for 
reconciliation.  So,  e.  g.,  by  making  certain  concessions 
"'-he  was  even  ready  to  accept  circumcision — Nicholas 
de  Cusa  wanted  to  unite  all  religions  into  one,  with  the 
Trinity  as  its  principal  dogma.  The  ancient  “obstinatio 
Judaeorum”  which  maintained  divine  unity  resisted 
these  attempts,  and  the  overtures  of  the  Christians  were 
generally  received  with  disfavor.  However,  conversions 
were  not  infrequent,  and  I  mean  not  only  those  brought 
about  by  violence,  but  also  those  obtained  by  persuasion. 
These  converted  Jews  played  a  very  great  role  in  the 
anti- Jewish  literature  as  well  as  in  the  history  of  the 
persecutions.  Toward  their  coreligionists  they  proved 
themselves  the  most  cruel,  unjust  and  treacherous  of 
adversaries.  This  is  generally  characteristic  of  converts, 
and  the  Arabs  converted  to  Christianity  or  Christians 
turned  to  Islam  witness  that  this  rule  allows  of  very  few 
exceptions. 

A  host  of  sentiments  united  in  maintaining  this  bilious 
disposition  among  the  apostates.  Above  all  they  wished 
to  give  proof  of  their  sincerity:  they  felt  that  a  sort  of 
suspicion  surrounded  them  at  entering  into  the  Chris¬ 
tian  world,  and  the  affectation  ot  piety  which  they  pro¬ 
claimed  did  not  seem  sufficient  to  them  to  dispel  the 
fiuspicions. 

Nothing  did  they  fear  so  much  as  the  accusation  of 
lukewarmness  or  sympathy  with  their  former  brethren, 
and  the  way  in  which  the  Inquisition  treated  those  it 


157 


deemed  relapsers,was  not  calculated  to  diminish  the  fears 
entertained  by  the  proselytes.  Accordingly,  they  simu¬ 
lated  an  excess  of  zeal  which  in  many,  if  not  all,  upheld 
a  genuine  faith.  Some  of  them,  convinced  of  having 
found  salvation  in  their  conversion,  made  even  efforts 
to  win  over  their  coreligionists  to  the  Christian  faith; 
among  these  the  church  found  several  of  its  most  fear¬ 
less  and  eagerly  listened  to  converters.* 1  They  did  not 
stop  at  publishing  apologies  ;  in  the  churches  they 
preached  to  the  Jews  whom  the  canonic  decrees  obliged 
to  attend  sermons  as  obedient  auditors.  Such 
were  Samuel  Nachmias1  baptized  under  the  name  of 
Morosini;  Joseph  Tzarphati,  who  assumed  the  name 
Monte  at  his  baptism;2  the  rabbi  Weidnerus,  who  con¬ 
vinced  a  great  number  of  the  Jews  of  Prague  of  the  ex¬ 
cellence  of  the  Trinity.  Some  even  informed  against  the 
Jews  that  they  had  abandoned  the  rigors  of  the  eccle¬ 
siastical  and  civil  laws.  About  1475,  for  instance,  Peter 
Schwartz  and  Hans  Bayol,  both  converted  Jews,  insti¬ 
gated  the  inhabitants  of  Ratisbon  to  sack  the  Ghetto; 
in  Spain,  Paul  de  Santa-Maria  instigated  Henry  III.  of 
Castile  to  take  measures  against  the  Jews.  This  Paul 
de  Santa-Maria,  previously  known  under  the  name  of 
Solomon  Levi  of  Burgos,  was  not  an  ordinary  personal¬ 
ity.  A  very  pious,  very  learned  rabbi,  he  abjured  at 
the  age  of  forty,  after  the  massacres  of  1391,  and  was 

1  For  the  antisemitic  literature  of  the  Jewish  apostates  con¬ 
sult  Wolf,  Bibl.  Hebr.,  v.  I. 

1  Via  della  Fede  (Wolf,  Bibl.  Hebr.,  p.  1010). 

*  Treatise  on  the  Confusion  of  the  Jews.  (Wolf,  Bibl.  Hebr., 

p.  1010). 


158 


ba]ptized  along  with  his  brother  and  four  of  his  sons.  He 
studied  theology  at  Paris,  was  ordained  priest,  became 
bishop  of  Cartagena  and  afterwards  chancellor  of  Cas¬ 
tile.  He  published  an  Examination  of  the  Holy  Writ , 
— a  dialogue  between  the  infidel  Saiil  and  the  convert 
Paul,— and  issued  an  edition  of  Nicholas  de  Lyra’s  Pos¬ 
tula,  supplemented  by  his  Additiones  and  glosses.  He 
did  not  stop  at  that  in  his  activity.  He  is  generally 
found  the  instigator  in  all  the  persecutions  which  befell 
the  Jews  of  his  time,  and  he  hunted  the  synagogue  with 
a  ferocious  hatred;  and  yet  in  his  works  he  confined 
himself  to  théologie  polemics.1 

But  not  all  converts  were  like  Paul  de  Santa-Maria. 
To  believe  Poggio  who  had  learned  Hebrew  from  a  bap¬ 
tized  Jew,  they  were,  generally  speaking,  little  educated, 
and  of  mediocre  intelligence:  “Stupid,’  say  he,  “crazy 
and  ignorant  as  are,  as  a  rule,  the  Jews  who  baptize.” 
This  class  of  catechumens  proved  itself  the  most  spite¬ 
ful.  Those,  however,  who  constituted  it,  were  provoked 
by  their  coreligionists,  who  bitterly  hated  their  apostates 
and  missed  no  opportunity  to  abuse  them,  so  that  nu¬ 
merous  laws  had  to  be  promulgated  forbidding  the  Jews 
to  throw  stones  at  the  renegades  and  soil  their  clothes 
with  oil  and  fetid  liquids.  When  unable  to  maltreat  them 
the  Jews  would  insult  and  rail  at  the  converts.  The 
new  Christians  replied  to  these  insults  by  publishing 
satires  on  the  rabbis,  as  did  Don  Pedro  Ferrus  and 
Diego  of  Valencia,  or  by  abusing  their  opponents  in 
bulky  dogmatic  treatises,  in  the  manner  of  Victor  de 

1  Cf.  Wolf,  Bill.  Hebr.,  I,  p.  1004  ;  and  Joseph  Rodriguez  de 
Castro,  Bibliotheca  espanola  (Madrid,  1781  ),  vol  I,  p.  235. 


159 


Carben.* 1 2  They  did  not  forget  to  resort  to  théologie  dem¬ 
onstration,  but  often  preferred  invention  and  even  cal¬ 
umny.  At  times  they  would  unite  both  methods,  as  in 
the  case  of  Alfonso  of  Valladolid  (Abner  of  Burgos), 
who  published  simultaneously  concordances  of  the  law 
and  treatises  of  violent  polemics  :  the  Book  of  God’s  Bat¬ 
tles  and  the  Mirror  of  Justice  1.) 

But  the  Talmud  was  the  great  antagonist  of  the  con¬ 
verts,  and  one  that  had  to  withstand  most  of  their  wrath. 
They  constantly  denounced  it  before  the  inquisitors,  the 
king,  the  emperor,  the  pope.  The  Talmud  was  the  ex¬ 
ecrable  book,  the  receptacle  of  the  most  hideous  abuses 
of  J esus,  the  Trinity  and  the  Christians  ;  against  it  Pedro 
de  la  Caballeria  wrote  his  Wrath  of  Christ  Against  the 
Jews J  Pfefferkorn,  his  Enemy  of  the  Jews  A  in  which 
he  congratulated  himself  .upon  “having  withdrawn  from 
the  dirty  and  pestilential  mire  of  the  J ews,”  and  J erome 
of  Santa  Fé,  his  H ebreomastyxJ  The  Catholic  theolo¬ 
gians  followed  the  example  of  the  converts,  most  fre¬ 
quently  they  had  about  the  Talmud  no  other  notions  be¬ 
yond  those  given  them  by  the  converts. 

Usually  auto-da-fés  followed  these  denunciations  of 
the  Talmud,  but  they  were,  as  a  rule,  preceded  by  a  dis- 

2  Three  treatises  against  the  Jews  1.  Propugnaculum  fidei 
christianae  (1510)  ;  2.  Judaeorum  erroris  et  moris  (Cologne, 
1509)  ;  3.  De  vita  et  morïbus  Judaeorum  (Paris,  1511).  Cf. 
Wolf,  Bibl.  Heir .,  v.  IV,  p.  578. 

1  Bibliothèque  Nationale,  manuscript  of  Spanish  origin,  No. 
43;  cf.  Isidore  Loeb,  Revue  des  Etudes  Juives,  v.  XVIII). 

2  Tractatus  Zelus  christi  contra  Judaeos,  Saracenos  et  infi¬ 
dèles  (Venice,  1542). 

3  Hostis  Judaeorum  (Cologne,  1509). 

*  Helreomastyx  (Frankfort,  1601). 


160 


putation.  This  custom  of  disputations  goes  back  to  deep 
antiquity.  We  know  that  already  the  Hebrew  doctors 
held  disputations  with  the  apostles.  On  several  occa¬ 
sions  rabbis  and  monks  were  seen  contending  in  elo¬ 
quence  in  the  presence  of  the  Emperors  of  Rome  and 
Byzantium  in  order  to  convince  their  audience  of  the 
excellence  of  their  cause,  and  the  Chazar  King  made 
up  his  mind  to  embrace  Judaism  only  after  a  discussion, 
in  which  a  Jew,  a  Christian  and  a  Mohammedan  took 
part,  so,  at  least,  the  legend  relates.1  These  discussions 
were,  however,  rarely  public,  the  church  feared  their 
consequences;  it  feared  Jewish  subtlety,  clever  at  finding 
objections  which  embarrassed  the  defenders  of  the  Catho¬ 
lic  faith  and  troubled  the  believer.  There  remained  in 
use  only  private  discussions  between  ecclesiastical  dig¬ 
nitaries  and  Talmudists,  and  few  auditors  were  admitted 
to  these  meetings,  except  under  rare  and  important  cir¬ 
cumstances,  in  which  cases  a  legal  sanction  followed  the 
dispute.  In  these  queer  disputes,  in  which  one  side  acted 
as  judge  at  the  same  time,  the  Jews  were,  in  general,  the 
stronger.  Their  more  concise  dialectics,  their  more 
genuine  knowledge,  their  more  serious  and  subtle  ex¬ 
egesis,  gave  them  an  easy  advantage.  In  spite  of  this,  or 
rather,  because  of  this,  the  Jews  were  very  prudent  in 
their  assertions,  they  appeared  in  the  most  courteous 
light,  and  heeded  those  melancholy  words  of  Moses 
Cohen  of  Tordesillas,  addressed  to  his  brethren  : 

1  Juda  Hallevy,  Liber  Cosri.  Translated  by  John  Buxtorf, 
Jr.,  1660 — a  German  translation  with  an  introduction  was  pub¬ 
lished  by  H.  Jolowicz  and  D.  Cassel,  Das  Buck  Kuzari,  1841, 
1853. 


161 


“Never  let  your  zeal  carry  you  away  to  the  point  of  ut¬ 
tering  stinging  words,  for  the  Christians  hold  the  power 
and  may  silence  the  truth  with  fist-blows.”  These  coun¬ 
sels  were  followed,  but  in  spite  of  the  precautions  taken, 
at  the  end  of  the  argument  the  Jew,  who  was  always 
wrong  in  the  end,  was  beaten  to  death. 

However,  the  informers  were  usually  commanded  to 
sustain  their  charges.  In  1239,  a  converted  Jew,  Nich¬ 
olas  Bonin  of  La  Rochelle,  brought  before  the  pope, 
Gregory  IX.,  a  charge  against  the  Talmud.  Gregory 
ordered  the  copies  of  the  book  to  be  seized  and  an  in¬ 
quest  made.  Bulls  were  sent  out  to  the  bishops  of 
France,  England,  Castile  and  Aragon.  Eudes  de 
Chateauroux,  chancellor  of  the  University  of  Paris,  di¬ 
rected  the  investigation  in  France,  the  only  country 
where  the  bulls  had  produced  an  effect.  The  disputa¬ 
tion  was  ordered,  and  took  place  in  1240,  between  the 
informer,  Nicholas  Donin,  and  four  rabbis:  Yechiel  of 
Paris,  Jehuda  ben  David  Melun,  Samuel  ben  Solomon, 
and  Moses  of  Coucy.  The  discussion  was  long,  but 
Donin’s  skill  finally  divided  the  rabbis  ;  the  Talmud  was 
condemned  and  burned  a  few  years  later. 

In  1263,  Raimond  de  Penaforte  arranged  at  the  Ara- 
gonian  court  a  dispute  between  the  rabbis,  Nachmani  of 
Girone  (Bonastruc  de  Porta),  and  the  Dominion,  Pablo 
Christiani,  a  converted  Jew  and  a  zealous  converter. 
This  time  Nachmani  was  victorious  after  a  four-day 
disputation  on  the  coming  of  Messiah,  on  the  divinity 
of  Jesus,  and  the  Talmud.  The  king  himself  accorded 
him  an  audience,  received  him  very  cordially  and  loaded 
him  with  presents.  But  such  victories  were  exceptional, 


1 62 


as  the  Jewish  books  were  most  frequently  condemned 
by  the  judges  beforehand,  whatever  the  skill  of  their 
defenders.  Thus,  a  baptized  Jew,  Joshua  Lorqui  d’Al- 
canis,  known  under  the  name  of  Geronimo  de  Santa  Fé, 
physician  to  the  anti-pope  Benedict  XIII.,  called,  with 
a  view  to  making  converts,  a  debate  which  opened  in 
1417  at  Tortosa.  Geronimo  exerted  himself  to  prove 
by  Talmudic  texts  that  Messiah  had  come  and  that  it 
was  certainly  Jesus.  As  adversaries  he  had  the  most 
famous  doctors  of  Spain,  Don  Vidal  Benveniste  ibn 
Albi,  Joseph  Albo,  Zerachya  Halevi  Saladin,  Astruc 
Levi  of  Daroque  and  Bonastruc  of  Girone.  The  con¬ 
troversy  took  place  before  the  anti-pope,  surrounded  by 
his  cardinals;  it  lasted  sixty  days,  but  no  conversions 
resulting  from  it  Geronimo  de  Santa  Fé  issued  an  ad¬ 
dress  to  the  court  against  the  Talmud,  and  the  reading  of 
it  was  forbidden. 

These  controversies  increased  in  number  in  Spain  dur¬ 
ing  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries.  Thus  the 
convert  Alfonso  of  Valladolid  had  a  dispute  with  his 
former  coreligionists  at  Valladolid;  John  of  Valladolid, 
another  convert,  had  a  dispute  with  Moses  Cohen  de 
Tordesillas  on  the  proofs  of  the  Christian  faith  contained 
in  the  Old  Testament,  but  was  defeated  in  the  contest; 
Shem-Tob  ben  Isaac  Shaprut  had  at  Pampeluna  a  con¬ 
troversy  on  the  original  sin  and  redemption,  with  the 
cardinal  Pedro  de  Luna,  later  anti-pope  Benedict  XIII. 
Many  more  might  be  mentioned,  all  of  them  proving 
what  amount  of  trouble  the  Jews  were  giving  the  church 
and  how  eagerly  conversion  was  desired  and  solicited. 
Still  all  these  disputes  were  courteous  up  to  the  moment 


163 


the  Inquisition  was  introduced.  The  theologians  made 
every  effort  to  prepare  priests  and  monks  so  as  to  pre¬ 
vent  the  Catholic  faith  from  suffering  a  blow,  and  for 
this  purpose,  they  composed  extracts  that  were  intended 
to  enlighten  the  defenders  of  Christ  on  the  faults  found 
with  the  Talmud.  A  few  of  these  guides  have  been  pre¬ 
served,  as,  e.  g .,  the  Extractiones  Talmut ,  edited  by 
Eudes  de  Chateauroux,  after  the  auto-da-fé  of  1242,  and 
the  Censura  et  Confutatio  libri  Talmut /  a  work  com¬ 
posed  by  Antonio  d^ Avila,  and  a  prior  of  the  convent  of 
the  Holy  Cross  of  Segovia,  and  addressed  to  Thomas 
de  Torquemada.  All  these  manuals  were  placed  in  the 
hands  of  the  Spanish  inquisitors  and  served  for  refer¬ 
ence  in  the  trials  of  the  Marranos  and  Jews. 

But  alongside  of  the  Jew,  considered  the  enemy  of 
Jesus  and  the  foe  of  Christianity,  there  was  the  Jew, 
the  usurer,  the  money-dealer,  he  upon  whom  fell  a  part 
of  the  hatred  of  the  oppressed  and  the  poor,  he  whom 
the  rising  bourgeoisie  was  beginning  to  envy  and  hate. 
I  have  pictured  that  Jew  at  work,  how  he  had  come  to 
the  exclusive  pursuit  of  gold,  and  how  he  became  the 
object  of  popular  passions  as  a  sort  of  victim  of  expia¬ 
tion,  the  scape-goat  for  all  the  sins  of  a  society  that  was 
no  better  than  he.  If  the  populace  oftenest  killed  the 
deicide,  it  also  fell  upon  the  clipper  of  ducats;  its  anti- 
Judaism  was  not  religious  only,  but  social  as  well.  The 
case  was  similar  with  anti- Judaism  of  the  pen.  If  certain 
bishops  and  ecclesiastical  writers  confined  themselves 
to  defending  the  symbols  of  their  faith  against  Jewish 

1  Ms.  351  of  the  Spanish  collection  of  the  Bibliothèque  Na¬ 
tionale  (Cf.  Loeb,  Revue  des  Etudes  Juives  v.  XVIII). 


164 


exegesis,  if  they  fought  against  this  Jewish  spirit, — the 
terror  of  the  church  that  was,  nevertheless,  deeply  im¬ 
pregnated  with  this  spirit, — others  followed  the  example 
of  the  Fathers  who  had  thundered  against  Jewish  rapa- 
ity  and  the  rapacity  of  the  rich  in  general.  To  the 
theological  treatises  issued  by  them  they  added  ad¬ 
dresses  to  the  court  intended  to  combat  the  lenders  on 
pawned  articles,  those  who  lived  by  usury.  Agobard,1 
Amolon,2  Eigord,3  Pierre  de  Cluny,4  Simon  Maiol5  were 
these  anti- Jews.  They  were  among  those  whom  the 
wealth  of  the  J ews  revolted  more  than  their  ungodliness, 
who  were  more  scandalized  by  their  luxury  than  by  their 
blasphemies.  No  doubt,  for  them  the  Jews  were  the 
most  hateful  adversaries  of  the  truth,  the  worst  of  the 
unbelievers;6  they  are  the  enemies  of  God  and  Jesus 
Christ;  they  call  the  apostles  apostates;  they  scoff  at 
the  Bible  of  the  Septuagint  ;*  in  their  daily  prayers  they 
curse  the  Saviour  under  the  name  of  the  Nazarene;  they 
build  new  synagogues  as  if  to  insult  the  Christian  re¬ 
ligion;  they  Judaize  the  believers,  they  preach  the  Sab¬ 
bath  to  them  and  they  persuade  them  to  take  a  rest 
on  Sabbath.  But,  besides,  the  Jews  oppress  the  people; 
they  hoard  up  wealth  that  is  the  fruit  of  usury  and  plun- 

1  De  Insolentia  Judaeorum  (Patrologie  latine  v.  CIV). 

2 Existola  sen  liber  contra  Judaeos  (Patrologie  latine,  v. 

CXVI). 

3  Oesta  Philippi  Augusti,  12-16. 

4  Tractatus  ad  versus  Judaeorum  inveteratam  duritiam  (Bibli¬ 
othèque  des  Peres  latins.  Lyons). 

5  Les  Jours  caniculaires  ( Dierum  çanicularium)  translated 
by  F.  de  Posset  (Paris,  1612). 

6  Agobard,  loc.  cit. 

1  Amolon,  loc,  cit. 


165 


der;2  they  hold  the  Christians  in  servitude;  they  pos¬ 
sess  enormons  treasures  in  the  cities  which  had  received 
them,  e.  g.,  in  Paris  and  Lyons;  they  commit  larceny, 
they  acquire  money  by  evil  methods  ;  “everything  passes 
through  their  hands,  they  insinuate  themselves  into 
houses  and  gain  confidence;  by  their  usury  they  draw 
the  sap,  the  blood  and  the  natural  vigor  of  the  Chris¬ 
tians.”3  They  sell  counterfeit  jewels,  they  receive  stolen 
goods,  they  coin  base  money,  cannot  be  trusted,  collect 
their  debts  twice  over.  In  brief,  “there  is  no  wicked¬ 
ness  in  the  world  which  the  Jews  are  not  guilty  of,  so 
that  they  seem  to  aim  at  nothing  but  the  Christians’ 
ruin.”5 

To  this  picture  of  the  perfidia  Judaeorum ,  the  anti- 
Jews,  like  Maiol  or  Luther,6  added  abundant  abuse,  and 
soon  anti- Judaism  became  purely  polemic.  The  theo¬ 
logical  and  social  considerations  now  occupy  but  a  lim¬ 
ited  place  in  the  books  of  Alonzo  da  Spina,1  especially 
Pierre  de  Lancre2  and  Francisco  de  Torrejoncillo.3 
The  Sentinel  Against  the  Jews,  a  pamphlet  by  the  last 
named,  is  particularly  curious.  Written  in  Spain  at  the 
beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century,  it  was  aimed  at 
the  Marranos,  who,  it  was  said,  invaded  all  the  civil  and 

2  Pierre  de  Cluny,  loc.  cit. 

3  Agobard,  loc.  cit. — Rigard,  loc.  cit. 

6  S.  Maiol,  loc.  cit. 

•  The  Jews  and  their  falsehoods  (Wittenberg,  1558 

1  Fortalitium  Fidei  (Nurenberg,  1494).  Wolf,  Bibl.  Hebr., 

v.  I,  p.  1116. 

2  U  Incrédulité  et  mecreance  du  sortilege  pleinement  convain¬ 
cue  (1622). 

8  Centinela  contra  Judios  (Cf.  Loeb,  Revue  des  Etudes  Juives, 

v.  V.) 


166 


religions  offices.  It  consisted  of  fourteen  books  and 
showed  that  the  Jews  were  presumptuous  and  liars,  that 
they  were  traitors,  that  they  were  despised  and  dejected, 
that  those  favoring  them  came  to  an  evil  end,  that 
neither  they  nor  their  work  could  be  trusted,  that  they 
were  turbulent,  self -conceited,  seditious,  that  the  church 
preserved  them  only  that  in  their  midst  might  be  bom 
their  Messiah  the  anti-Christ,  who  will  be  vanquished 
to  allow  Israel  to  recognize  his  error.  At  any  rate  Fran¬ 
cisco  de  Torrejoncillo  may  be  considered  amiable  if  one 
compare  his  pamphlet  with  a  singular  little  work  of  the 
same  epoch  bearing  the  title,  Booh  of  the  ATboraique  * 
The  Alboraique  was  Mohamet’s  mount,  a  queer  animal, 
neither  horse,  nor  mule,  nor  ox,  nor  donkey;  to  this 
singular  animal  the  author  of  the  squib  likens  the  new 
Christians,  the  Marranos,  who  are  Alboraiques  as  being 
neither  Jews  nor  Christians.  Thereupon  the  pamph¬ 
leteer  declares  that  the  Jews  or  Marranos  possess  all  the 
characteristics  of  the  Alboraique,  and  he  lays  down  one 
of  the  most  extraordinary  parallels.  Mohamet’s  mount 
had  the  ears  of  a  harrier,  but  the  Alboraiques  are  dogs  ; 
it  had  the  body  of  an  ox,  but  the  Alboraiques  think  only 
of  the  material  welfare  and  of  filling  their  stomach;  it 
had  a  serpent’s  tail,  but  the  Alboraiques  spread  the 
poison  of  heresy. 

Had  all  the  polemists  limited  themselves  to  allegorical 
comparisons,  not  much  harm  would  have  come  to  the 
Jews.  But  some  did  not  hesitate  to  relate  the  most  ex¬ 
traordinary  things  about  these  accursed  ones,  and  the 

1  Bibliothèque  Nationale,  Spanish  section,  Ms.  No.  356  (Loeb, 
Revue  des  Etudes  Juives  v.  XVIII). 


167 


anti- Je  wish  polemic  literature  enregistered  all  the 
popular  prejudices,  even  made  them  worse;  it  originated 
new  ones  and  perpetuated  them  in  all  instances.  The 
wildest  stories  about  the  Jews  were  circulated;  they 
were  represented  with  monstrous  features;  the  most 
abominable  deformities,  the  blackest  vices,  the  most 
heinous  crimes,  the  most  despicable  habits  were  attri¬ 
buted  to  them.  They  have,  so  it  was  declared,  the  fig¬ 
ure  of  a  he-goat,  they  have  horns  and  a  caudal  append¬ 
age,* 1  they  are  subject  to  quinsy,  to  scrofula,  to  blood-flux, 
stinking  infirmities  which  make  them  lower  their  heads,1 
they  have  hemorrhoids,  bloody  sores  on  their  hands,  they 
cannot  spit  ;  at  night  their  tongue  is  overrun  with  worms. 
The  belief  in  these  diseases  peculiar  to  the  Jews  had  come 
from  Spain, in  the  fourteenth  century;  later  on  they  were 
arranged  in  lists,  the  oldest  of  which  belongs  to  1634.  In 
these  lists,  to  each  of  the  twelve  tribes  its  special  disease 
is  assigned.  Those  of  Reuben’s  tribe,  is  was  said,  had 
laid  their  hands  on  Jesus,  accordingly  their  hands  dry 
up  whatever  they  touch;  those  of  Simeon’s  tribe  had 
nailed  Jesus, — and  they  have  bloody  stains  on  their  feet 
four  times  a  year  ;  “let  his  blood  fall  upon  us  !”  they 
all  had  cried,  and,  therefore,  their  children  are  born  with 
a  bloody  arm  and  on  Holy  Friday  they  throw  blood 
from  their  anus.  Purely  mystical,  then,  was  the  origin 
of  this  belief  in  the  maladies  of  the  Jews;  it  may  even 
be  said  that  it  was  the  rhetorical  figures  and  allegorical 
similes,  only  objectified  and  made  concrete,  that  gave 
rise  to  these  fables.  Legends  grew  up  which  had  for 


1  Centinela  con  ra  Judios. 

1  Pierre  de  Lancre,  loc.  cit. 


168 


their  starting  point  a  metaphor,  like  the  legend  of  the 
smell  of  the  Jews.  Fortunatus  is  the  first  to  speak  of  it 
— for  it  seems  probable  that  the  passage  from  Am- 
mianns  Marcellinus  often  referred  to  was  misquoted,2 
and  he  speaks  of  it  in  a  figurative  sense  :x  “The  bap¬ 
tismal  water  removes  the  J ewish  odor  ;  the  purified  flock 
will  exhale  a  new  fragrancy.”  Besides,  the  notion  of 
fragrancy  was  associated  with  that  of  purity;  to  say 
of  a  blest  man  that  he  died  in  the  fragrancy  of  sanctity 
really  meant  that  this  saint  had  the  gift  of  emitting 
divine  balms.  When  we  read  the  lives  of  Saint  Dom- 
inicus,  of  Anthony  of  Padua,  of  Francois  de  Paule,  we 
see  that  they  had  enjoyed  that  privilege.  On  the  con¬ 
trary,  the  vicious,  the  impious,  all  those  whose  soul  was 
impure,  would  exhale  an  infected  odor.  Saint  Phillip 
de  Neri,  so  his  biographer  asserts,  would  distinguish  the 
incontinent  vices  of  men  by  the  odor,  and  thus  he  would 
divine  the  presence  of  the  devil;  Dominique  de  Paradis 
and  Gentille  de  Ravennes  also  possessed  this  faculty. 
As  for  the  devil,  everybody  concurred  in  saying,  during 
the  Middle  Ages,  that  he  revealed  his  presence  by  a 
poisoned  goat-smell.  The  Jew,  who  was  the  worst  of 
the  impious,  and  the  true  son  of  Satan,  could  not,  ac¬ 
cordingly,  help  exhaling  atrocious  emanations.  Strange 
to  say,  the  Jews  had  similar  notions  of  the  relations  be¬ 
tween  sin  and  ill  smell,  and  according  to  Maimonides, 

•Ammianus  Marcellinus,  B.  XXII.  It  is  certain  that  the 
Judaeorum  foetentium  of  which  Marcus  Aurelius  complained, 
comes  from  a  blunder  or  the  spite  of  the  copyist,  and  that  foe¬ 
tentium — ill-smelling — was  substituted  for  poetentium- turbulent, 
which  the  Ms.  of  Ammianus  contained. 

1  Fortunatus,  Garmina,  1.  V. 


169 


the  Serpent  had  thrown  its  stench  on  the  race  of  Eve, 
but  the  faithful  Jews  had  been  preserved. 

Thus  can  be  explained  some  other  anti-Jewish 
prejudices;  but  though  it  is  evident  that  the  likening  of 
the  Israelites  to  the  evil  spirit  caused  the  he-goat  figure 
and  horns  on  their  foreheads  to  be  attributed  them,  still 
many  of  these  beliefs  remain  inexplicable.  They  all 
arise,  in  part,  from  the  fact  that  the  retired  life  of  the 
Jews,  their  venerable  habit  of  keeping  aloof,  not  to 
mingle  with  those  surrounding  them — ever  served  to 
excite  excessively  the  popular  imagination.  Whenever 
individuals  or  groups  of  individuals  willingly  fenced 
themselves  in  or  were  fenced  in,  the  same  phenomenon 
occurred;  people  would  forget  the  causes  which  had 
brought  on  this  seclusion  and  the  isolated  would  be  en¬ 
dowed  with  passions,  vices,  and  infirmities,  deemed  the 
more  horrible,  as  these  recluses  were  detested.  The 
same  thing  happened  with  certain  conventual  associa¬ 
tions,  with  secret  societies,  with  militant  religious  or¬ 
ders,  with  all  groups,  which  in  any  way  lived  away  from 
the  masses,  whether  for  mystical,  national  or  political 
reasons, — it  mattered  little.  The  populace  is  naturally 
curious,  more  than  that,  it  is  strongly  imaginative,  in¬ 
clined  to  make  up  legends,  to  originate  fables,  and  very 
naively  at  that,  in  a  childish  fashion.  A  word,  a  sen¬ 
tence,  an  association  of  ideas  suffice;  at  the  slightest  in¬ 
dication  it  rears  up  dreams,  invents  stories,  of  which  it 
is  impossible  to  extricate  the  origin.  Whatever  is  hid¬ 
den  disquiets,  troubles,  preoccupies  it.  It  seeks  for 
the  motives  that  make  a  class  of  people  shelter  them¬ 
selves  in  a  collective  solitude,  and  finding  none,  invents 


170 


them;  at  all  events,  though  it  may  discover  some  real 
motives,  it  cannot  help  inventing  imaginary  ones.  All 
those  who  belonged  to  what  is  known  as  the  accursed 
races  were  made  the  subject  of  these  fables  and  legends. 

With  reference  to  the  Cagots  of  the  Pyrenees,  the 
Gahets  of  Guienne,  the  Agotacs  of  the  Lower  Pyrenees, 
the  Couax  of  Bretagne,  the  Oiseliers  of  the  duchy  of 
Bouillon,  the  Burrins  of  l’Ain,  the  Capots,  the  Trangots, 
the  Gesitans,  the  Coliberts, — the  same  assertions  were 
made  as  of  the  Jew/1  They  exhale,  it  was  said,  a  stink¬ 
ing  and  infectious  odor,  they  wither  fruits  by  holding 
them  in  their  hands,  they  are  subject  to  the  flux  of  blood, 
they  have  a  caudal  appendage,  they  emit  blood  from  the 
navel  on  Holy  Friday,  they  have  dim  eyes,  they  droop 
their  heads,  they  cannot  expectorate.  With  slight 
variations,  these  stories  were  repeated  about  the  Arians, 
Manicheans,  Cathari,  Albigenses,  Patarians,  in  general, 
of  all  heretics. 

As  to  the  Templars,  concerning  whom  so  many  similar 
abominations  had  been  spread,  they,  above  all  others,  can 
be  likened  unto  the  Jews.  Like  the  latter,  they  were 
hated  for  their  pride,  their  ostentation,  their  wealth  in 
the  midst  of  general  misery,  their  eagerness  for  gain, 
their  shameless  use  of  means  of  acquisition,  their  making 
usurious  contracts.  They  were  hated  because  they  ad¬ 
vanced  money  on  chattels  and  fiefs  on  condition  that 
these  fiefs  and  chattels  remained  theirs  in  case  of  the 
borrower’s  death  ;  because  the  Templars’  Order  possessed 
a  greater  part  of  the  French  territory  in  the  thirteenth 
century  and  formed  a  commonwealth  within  the  state, 

1  Michel,  Les  Races  maudites,  Paris,  1847. 


171 


the  Templars  having  and  recognizing  no  master  but 
God.1  We  see  then  that  the  same  causes  produce  the 
same  results,  create  the  same  animosities,  give  rise  to  the 
same  beliefs. 

Were  not  the  Templars  said  to  “burn  and  roast  the 
children  they  begat  by  young  girls,  and  to  sacrifice  to 
and  anoint  their  idols  with  the  fat  taken  off”  ;2  were  not 
the  Cagots  said  to  make  use  of  Christian  blood?  Does 
not  the  charge  of  ritual  murder  weigh  over  the  Jews  as 
it  had  weighed  over  those  wretches,  the  lepers,  whom  the 
Middle  Ages  treated  as  the  Jew’s  brethren,  thus  taking 
up  again  the  assertions  of  Manetho,  repeated  by  Chaere- 
mon,  Lysimachus,  Posidonius,  Apollonius  Molon  and 
Apion,  just  as  it  had  weighed  over  the  sorcerers,  who 
were  also  likened  to  the  Jews?  But  we  shall  come  back 
to  this  question  when  we  speak  of  the  modern  anti- 
Semites. 

What  was  the  attitude  of  the  Jews  in  the  face  of  all 
these  attacks  and  abuses  which  the  theologians  and  po- 
lemists  directed  at  them?  They  vigorously  defended 
themselves.  They  opposed  exegesis  to  exegesis  ;  they  op¬ 
posed  their  logic  to  their  opponents’  arguments  ;  they  an¬ 
swered  insults  and  calumnies  with  calumnies  and  insults  ; 
which  is  but  normal,  natural,  inevitable,  but  all  the  same 
these  insults  fatally  rebounded  against  them.  If  the  anti- 
Jewish  literature  is  enormous,  the  defensive  literature 
of  the  Jews,  as  well  as  their  anti-Christian  literature — 


1  Lavocat,  Procès  des  Freres  de  Vordre  du  Temple,  Paris,  1888. 

*  Lavocat,  loc.  cit. 


for  the  Jews  oftentimes  took  up  the  offensive — is  quite 
considerable.1 

The  first  controversial  work  belonging  to  the  Israelite 
literature  of  the  Middle  Ages,  was  the  Boole  of  the  Lord's 
Wars ,  written  in  1170,  by  Jacob  ben  Buben.2  It  was 
made  up  of  twelve  chapters,  or  gateways,  proving  that 
Messiah  had  not  yet  come,  which,  however,  for  the  exe- 
getic  rhetoricians,  was  just  as  easy  as,  if  not  easier  than  to 
prove  the  opposite.  But  it  was  not  enough  to  prove  that 
Jesus  was  not  the  awaited  Messiah;  it  was  equally  nec¬ 
essary  to  prove  the  superiority  of  the  Jewish  religion  to 
those  who  were  establishing,  irrefutably,  the  superiority 
of  the  Christian  religion,  and  this  was  easy  for  both 
sides,  as  each  drew  from  the  Bible  what  suited  it.  The 
Talmudists  made  use  of  the  New  Testament  even  to  con¬ 
firm  their  Judaic  dogmas.  This  was  done  by  Moses 
Tohen  de  Tordesillas,  in  his  Support  of  the  Faith ,  while 
Shem-Tob  ben  Isaac  Shaprut  resumed,  in  the  form  of  a 
dialogue  between  a  Unitarian  and  a  Trinitarian,  the 
ideas  propounded  by  Jacob  ben  Ruben.1 

The  polemic  literature  was  greatly  developed  in  Spain 

1  It  would  be  necessary  to  devote  a  whole  chapter  to  the  anti- 
Christian  literature,  which  I  cannot  possibly  do  here,  where 
anti- Judaism  is  the  main  question,  and  I  shall  simply  indicate 
the  Jewish  reaction.  The  Jewish  endeavor  against  “Christian 
idolatry”  was  great  indeed.  To  get  some  idea  of  it,  it  will  suf¬ 
fice  to  glance  over  the  Bibliotheca  Judaica  antichristiana  of  J. 
B.  Rossi  (Parma,  1800).  Besides,  the  catalogue  compiled  by 
Rossi  is  not  perfectly  exact  ;  still  it  enables  one  to  gauge  the 
polemic  activity  of  the  Jews,  which  finds  its  equal  only  in  that 
of  the  Christians  (Cf.  also  Wolf  and  Wagenseil,  loc.  cit.) 

2  Loeb,  Revue  des  Etudes  Juives,  v.  XVIII 

1  Shem-Tob  ben  Isaac  Shaprut,  The  Touchstone  (Loeb,  loc. 

cit.  ) . 


173 


in  the  fifteenth  century.  The  time  was  a  hard  one 
for  the  Jews  of  the  Peninsula.  The  Church  doubled  its 
efforts  to  convert  them;  disputes,  pamphlets,  treatises 
increased  in  numbers.  The  Jews  fought  against  prose- 
lytism  resorting  to  it  under  the  last  extremity,  and  later 
on,  at  the  moment  of  the  final  banishement,  the  greatest 
part  of  them  chose  exile  without  the  hope  of  return, 
rather  than  conversion.  While  the  monks  sought  in  the 
Pentateuch  and  the  Prophets  arguments  in  support  of 
the  Christian  symbols,  the  Jews  endeavored  to  lay  plain 
the  differences  which  divide  the  two  creeds,  and  were 
fighting  Catholicism  in  order  to  confirm  the  faith  in  the 
soul  of  those  who  vacillated.  Like  Chasdai  Crescas  thev 
studied  their  opponents’  theology.  Thus  armed,  Jacob 
ibn  Shem  Tob  wrote  the  Ob  jections  to  the  Christian  Re¬ 
ligion /  Simon  ben  Zemach  Duran  published  a  Philo¬ 
sophical  Examination  of  Judaism,  a  special  chapter  of 
which,  entitled  “Bow  and  Shield,”  contained  a  critique 
of  Christianity. 

In  imitation  of  the  ecclesiastical  writers  and  inquis¬ 
itors,  the  rabbis  wrote  books  for  the  use  of  those  who 
were  challenged  in  disputes.  A  kind  of  vade  mecum, 
these  books  pointed  out  the  vulnerable  sides  of  the  Chris¬ 
tian  dogmas  ;  and  if,  on  the  one  hand,  there  were  publi¬ 
cations  like  “Judaism  Defeated  with  Its  Own  Weapons,” 
on  the  other  hand  were  composed  works  like  “Christian¬ 
ity  Defeated  with  Its  Own  Arms,”  i.  e.,  with  those  found 
in  the  New  Testament.  In  anti-Christian  literature  the 
Gospels  played  the  part  of  the  Talmud  in  anti- Jewish 


1  Cf.  Graetz,  v.  IV. 


174 


literature.  Beginning  with  the  eleventh  or  twelfth  cen¬ 
tury  they  were  often  assailed,  and  numerous  discussions 
took  place  between  rabbanites  and  theologians.  These 
discussions  were  sometimes  gathered  in  collections,  where 
they  were  presented  in  a  light  favorable  to  Jewish  dia¬ 
lectics.  Presently  these  collections  came  to  be  used  as 
manuals;  among  them  were  the  ancient  Nizzachon  (Vic¬ 
tory)  of  Eabbi  Mattathiah;  the  Nizzachon  of  Lipman 
de  Mülhausen;  the  one  by  Joseph  Kimhi;  the  Strength¬ 
ening  of  the  Faith ,  by  Isaac  Troki,2  and  the  Boole  of 
Joseph  the  Zealot.* 1  Still  this  was  not  sufficient  for  the 
fervor  of  the  Jews.  Having  prepared  the  minds  for 
future  debates,  having  assailed  the  Catholic  doctrines, 
not  in  oratorical  tournaments  only,  but  in  apologies  as 
well,  they  wrote  abusive  pamphlets,  like  that  famous 
Toldot  Jesho,  the  life  of  the  Galilean  which  goes  back 
to  the  second  or  third  century,  and  which  Celsius  possi¬ 
bly  was  acquainted  with.2  This  Toldot  Jesho  was  pub¬ 
lished  by  Raymund  Martin,  Luther  translated  it  into 
German;  Wagenseil  and  the  Dutchman  Huldrich  also 
published  it.  It  contained  the  story  of  Pantherus  the 
soldier  and  the  legends  representing  J esus  as  a  magician. 
After  defending  the  Bible  and  Monotheism  the  Jews 
turned  upon  those  who  were  their  most  dangerous  ene¬ 
mies — the  converted.  If  they  had  refuted  Raymund 

2  Wagenseil  in  his  Tela  ignea  Satanae  (Altdorf,  1681),  repro¬ 
duces  all  these  treatises  in  print. 

1Zadoc  Kahn,  The  Booh  of  Joseph  the  Zealot  (Revue  des 
Etudes  Juives,,  vols.  I  and  III). 

2  For  the  Toldot  Jesho,  cf.  Tela  ignea  Satanae,  Wagenseil,  v. 
II,  5,  189,  and  B.  de  Rossi,  Bihlotheca  Judaiea  antichrist iana 
(Parma,  1800),  p.  117. 


175 


Martin3  and  Nicholas  de  Lyra*,  they  refuted  with  still 
greater  energy  Jerome  de  Santa  Fé,  the  Santa  Fé  whom 
his  former  coreligionists  called  Megaddef,  i.  e.,  blas¬ 
phemer.  At  Jerome  they  were  incensed.  Don  Vidal 
ibn  Labi,  Isaac  ben  Nathan  Kalonymos,5  Solomon 
Duran,* 1  several  others,  wrote  to  give  the  lie  to  the  “cal¬ 
umniator.”  The  same  was  done  by  Isaac  Pulgar  against 
Alfonso  of  Valladolid,2  by  Joshua  ben  Joseph  Lorqui 
and  Profiat  Duran.3  The  apostates  of  the  Middle  Ages 
were  not  treated  perceptibly  better  than  of  yore,  in  the 
first  century  of  the  Christian  era,  when  a  curse  that  was 
to  smite  them  was  added  to  the  daily  prayers;  from  the 
tenth  till  the  sixteenth  or  seventeenth  century,  they 
repeated  against  them  what  the  Talmud  said  of  the  Min- 
cans,  the  ancient  Judeo-Christians  and  the  Ebionites. 
Of  course,  all  these  Jewish  books  were  not  accepted  with¬ 
out  protests  ;  they  also  called  forth  numerous  refutations, 
which  in  turn  gave  rise  to  replies. 

In  the  seventeenth  century  anti- Judaism  took  on  an¬ 
other  form.  The  theologians  were  succeeded  by  erudites, 
scholars,  exegetes.  Anti- Judaism  became  milder  and 
more  scientific;  it  was  represented  by  hebraizers,  often 
of  great  attainments,  like  Wagenseil,4  Bartolocci,5  Voe- 

4  Wagenseil,  loc.  cit. 

5  Magna  Biblothica  Rabbinica  (Rome,  1693-95). 

8  Solomon  ben  Adret,  of  Barcelona,  refuted  the  Pugio  Fidel. 

4  Chayimibn  Musa  refuted  Nicholas  de  Lyra  in  his  Shield 
and  Sword  (Graetz,  loc.  cit.) 

1  Letter  of  Combat  (Graetz,  loc.  cit.,  and  Rossi,  Bibloth.  anti¬ 
christ,  (p.  100). 

2 Dialogue  against  the  Apostates  (Loeb,  loc.  cit.) 

3  Alteca  Boteca  (Loeb,  loc.  cit.) — De  Rossi,  Dizionario  degli 

autori  Ebrei  (Parma,  1802),  p.  89. 


176 


tius,6  Joseph  de  Voisin,7  etc.  These  men  studied  Jewish 
literature  and  manners  in  a  more  serious  way.  Thus 
Wagenseil  denied  ritual  murder;* 1  though  saying  that 
the  Talmud  contained  “blasphemies,  impostures  and 
absurdities,”  Buxtorf  declared  that  it  also  contained 
things  of  value  for  the  historian  and  philosopher.2  Yet 
the  same  ideas  persisted  which  had  inspired  the  authors 
of  the  preceding  centuries.  The  object  was  always  to 
prove  the  truth  of  the  Christian  faith  and  dogmas  on 
the  basis  of  the  Old  Testament;  the  anxiety  to  convert 
the  Jews  ever  haunted  the  souls,  the  recall  of  Israel  was 
spoken  of,  means  of  bringing  them  back  were  proposed  ;3 
the  apostates  invoked  the  Zohar  and  Mishna  in  favor  of 
Jesus,4  and  the  polemic  literature  was  still  in  bloom 
under  Eisenmenger,  whose  Judaism  Unveiled 5  has  in¬ 
spired  many  contemporary  antisémites;  under  Schudt,6 
later  under  Voltaire.  It  is  true  that  literary  anti- Juda¬ 
ism,  particularly  that  of  combative  tendencies  and  pam- 

8  Disputationes  Selectae  (Utrecht,  1663). 

7  Theologia  Judaeorum  (1647). 

1  Benachrichtung  icegen  einiger  die  Judenschaft  angehenden 
Sachen  (Altdorf,  1709). 

2  Dictionn.  chaldeo-talmudico-rabbinique  (Basiliae,  1639)  and 
Synagoga  Judaica  (Hanau,  1604). 

s  Pean  de  la  Croullardiere,  Methode  facile  pour  convaincre  les 
heretiques  (Paris,  1667),  which  contains  a  “method  of  assailing 
ad  converting  the  Jews”  ;  Thomas  Bell’  Hader,  Dottrina  facile 
e  breve  per  réduire  VHebreo  al  conoscimento  del  vero  Messia  e 
Salvator  del  Hondo  (Venetia  1608). 

4  Conrad  Otton,  Gali  Razia  (Secrets  unveiled),  (Nurenberg, 
1605).  .  ' 

B  Judaism  Unveiled  (Frankfort,  1700). 

0  Compendium  Historiae  Judaicae  (Frankfort,  1700)  and  Ju¬ 
daeus  Christicida  gravissime  peccans  et  vapulans  (1760). 


177 


phleteers,  is  varied  but  little.  Most  of  the  anti- Jewish 
writers  imitate  one  another,  without  scruple;  they  pla¬ 
giarize  without  even  taking  the  trouble  to  verify  the  as¬ 
sertions  of  their  predecessors.  One  book  of  the  kind  is 
responsible  for  similar  others:  Alonzo  da  Spina  draws 
his  inspiration  from  Batallas  de  Dios ,  by  Alfonso  of 
Valladolid;  Porchet  Salvaticus,  Pietro  Galatini,  Pierre 
de  Barcelona  republish,  under  different  names,  Raymund 
Martinis  Sword  of  the  Faith ;  Paul  Fagius  and  Sebastian 
Münster1  help  themselves  to  the  Booh  of  the  Faith. 

In  spite  of  this,  and  independently  of  the  dissimilar¬ 
ities  I  have  noted,  anti- Judaism,  from  the  seventeenth 
century  on,  is  in  all  respects  quite  different  from  the 
anti- Judaism  of  the  preceding  centuries.  The  social  side 
gets  gradually  the  upperhand  of  the  religious  side, 
though  this  latter  continues  to  exist.  The  question  is 
asked,  not  whether  the  Jews  are  wrong  in  being  usurers, 
or  merchants,  or  deicides,.but  whether,  as  Schudt2  says, 
the  J ews  ought  to  be  tolerated  in  a  State  or  not,  whether 
it  is  lawful  to  admit  Jews  into  a  Christian  common¬ 
wealth,  as  John  Dury3  inquires,  about  1655,  in  a  pam¬ 
phlet  directed  against  Cromwell’s  protégé,  Menasseh  ben 
Israel.  This  is  the  social  standpoint  which  we  shall  see 
developing  henceforth  in  literary  anti- Judaism  ;  a  part 
of  modern  antisemitism  will  rest  on  the  theory  of  a 
Christian  State  and  its  integrity,  and  in  this  wise  it  will 
be  connected  with  the  ancient  anti- Judaism.  In  the 
course  of  this  book  we  shall  have  to  examine  more  closely 


1  Revue  des  Etudes  juives ,  v.  V,  p  57. 

*  Log .  cit. 

KA  Case  of  Conscience  (London,  1655). 


178 


the  affinities  and  differences  which  unite  and  separate 
these  two  kinds  of  anti- Judaism. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

MODERN  LEGAL  ANTI-JUDAISM. 

Emancipated  Judaism. — The  Position  of  the  Jews  in 
Society. — Usury  and  the  Affairs  in  Alsace. — Napo¬ 
leon  and  the  Administrative  Organization  of  the 
Jewish  Religion. — The  Great  Sanhedrin. — The  Re¬ 
strictive  Laws  and  the  Progressive  Liberation  in 
France. — The  Emancipation  in  the  Netherlands. — 
Emancipation  in  Italy  and  Germany. — The  Anti- 
Napoleonic  Reaction  and  the  Jews. — The  Revival  of 
Anti- Jewish  Legislation. — Popular  Movements. — 
Emancipation  in  England. — In  Austria. — The  Rev¬ 
olution  of  1848  and  the  Jews. — The  End  of  Legal 
Anti-Judaism  in  the  West. — Eastern  Anti-Judaism. 
— The  Jews  in  Roumania. — The  Russian  Jews. — 
The  Persecutions. — The  Social  Question  and  the 
Religious  Question. 

After  preliminary  discussions,  as  a  result  of  which 
any  decision  on  the  emancipation  of  the  Jews  was  ad¬ 
journed,  the  Constituent  Assembly  voted,  on  September 
27,  1791,  on  a  motion  by  Duport,  and  thanks  to  Régnault 
de  Saint- Jean-d’ Angély’s  intervention,  the  admission  of 
the  Jews  to  the  rank  of  citizens.  This  decree  had  been 


179 


ready  for  a  long  time,  prepared  as  it  was  through  the 
work  of  the  commission  assembled  by  Louis  XVI,  with 
Malesherbes  in  the  chair  ;  prepared  by  the  writings  of 
Lessing  and  Dohm,  of  Mirabeau  and  Grégoire.  It  was 
the  logical  outcome  of  the  efforts  made  for  some  time  by 
the  Jews  and  the  philosophers;  in  Germany  Mendels¬ 
sohn  had  been  its  promoter  and  most  active  advocate, 
and  in  Berlin  Mirabeau  drew  his  inspiration  at  the  side 
of  Dohm  in  the  salons  of  Henriette  de  Lemos. 

A  certain  class  of  Jews  had,  however,  already  been 
emancipated.  In  Germany  the  court  Jews  (Hofjuden) 
had  obtained  commercial  privileges  ;  even  titles  of  nobil¬ 
ity  were  being  conferred  upon  them  for  money.  In 
France  the  Portuguese  Marranos  returned  to  Judaism, 
enjoyed  great  liberties  and  prospered  under  the  super¬ 
vision  of  their  syndics  at  Bordeaux,  very  indifferent 
nevertheless  to  the  fate  of  their  unfortunate  brethren, 
though  very  influential  :  one  of  them,  Gradis,  failed  to 
secure  a  nomination  as  deputy  to  the  States-General.  In 
Alsace  even,  several  Jews  obtained  important  favors,  as, 
e.  g.,  Cerf  Berr,  purveyor  to  the  armies  of  Louis  XV, 
who  granted  him  naturalization  and  the  title  of  Marquis 
de  Tombelaine. 

Thanks  to  all  these  privileges,  there  sprang  into  exist¬ 
ence  a  class  of  rich  Jews  which  came  into  contact  with 
the  Christian  society;  open-minded,  subtle,  intelligent, 
refined,  of  extreme  intellectualism,  it  had  given  up,  like 
so  many  Christians,  the  letter  of  religion  or  of  the  faith 
even,  and  retained  nothing  but  a  mystic  idealism  which, 
for  good  or  ill,  went  hand  in  hand  with  a  liberal  ration¬ 
alism.  The  fusion  between  this  group  of  Jews  and  the 


180 


elite  led  by  Lessing,  was  brought  about  above  all  in  Ber¬ 
lin,  a  young  city  and  centre  of  a  kingdom  which  was 
rising  to  fame,  an  easy-going  city,  with  little  tradition. 
Young  Germany  gathered  at  the  houses  of  Henrietta  de 
Lemos  and  Rachel  von  Varnhagen;  with  the  Jews,  Ger¬ 
man  Romanticism  ended  in  impregnating  itself  with 
Spinozaism;  Schleiermacher  and  Humboldt  were  seen 
visiting  there,  and  it  may  be  said  that  if  the  Constituent 
Assembly  decreed  the  emancipation  of  the  Jews,  it  was 
in  Germany  that  it  had  been  prepared. 

At  any  rate,  the  number  of  these  Jews  qualified  to 
mingle  with  the  nations,  was  extremely  limited,  the  more 
so  because  the  majority  of  them — like  Mendelsson’s 
daughters,  like  Boerne  and  Heine  later  on — ended  by 
converting,  and  thus  no  longer  existed  as  Israelites.  As 
for  the  mass  of  Jewo,  it  was  in  quite  different  circum¬ 
stances. 

The  decree  of  1791  freed  these  pariahs  from  a  secular 
servitude;  it  broke  the  fetters  with  which  the  laws  had 
bound  them;  it  wrested  them  from  all  kinds  of  ghettos 
where  they  had  been  imprisoned  ;  from,  as  it  were,  cattle 
it  made  them  human  beings.  But  if  it  was  within  its 
power  to  restore  them  to  liberty,  if  it  was  possible  for  it 
to  undo  within  one  day  the  legislative  work  of  centuries, 
it  could  not  annul  their  moral  effect,  and  it  was  espec¬ 
ially  impotent  to  break  the  chains  which  the  Jews  had 
forged  themselves.  The  Jews  were  emancipated  legally, 
but  not  so  morally;  they  kept  their  manners,  customs 
and  prejudices — prejudices  which  their  fellow  citizens 
of  other  confessions  kept,  too.  They  were  happy  at  hav¬ 
ing  escaped  their  humiliation,  but  they  looked  around 


181 


with  diffidence  and  suspected  even  their  liberators. 

For  .centuries  they  had  looked  with  disgust  and  terror 
at  this  world  which  was  rejecting  them;  they  had  suf¬ 
fered  from  it,  but  they  still  more  feared  to  lose  their 
personality  and  faith  from  contact  with  it.  More  than 
one  old  Jew  must  have  looked  with  anxiety  at  the  new 
existence  which  opened  before  him  ;  I  should  not  even  be 
surprised  if  there  were  some  in  whose  eyes  the  liberation 
appeared  a  misfortune  or  abomination.  Many  of  these 
miserable  beings  cherished  their  humiliation,  their  seclu¬ 
sion  which  kept  them  far  from  sin  and  contamination, 
and  the  efforts  of  the  majority  were  bent  on  remaining 
what  they  were,  among  strangers  in  whose  midst  they 
were  cast.  The  enlightened,  intelligent  part  of  the 
Jews,  the  reformers,  who  suffered  from  their  inferior 
position  and  from  the  degradation  of  their  coreligionists 
— these  worked  for  emancipation,  but  even  they  could 
not  at  once  transform  those  for  whom  they  had  re¬ 
claimed  the  right  of  being  human  creatures. 

As  the  decree  of  emancipation  did  not  change  the 
Judaic  self,  the  way  in  which  this  self  manifested  itself 
was  not  changed  either.  Economically  the  Jews  re¬ 
mained  what  they  were — be  it  understood  that  I  speak 
of  the  majority — unproductive,  i.  e.,  brokers,  money¬ 
lenders,  usurers,  and  they  could  not  be  otherwise,  given 
their  habits  and  conditions  under  which  they  had  lived. 
With  the  exception  of  an  insignificant  minority  among 
them,  they  had  no  other  aptitudes,  and  even  nowadays  a 
great  many  Jews  are  in  the  same  plight.  They  did  not 
fail  to  apply  these  aptitudes,  and  during  this  period  of 
unrest  and  disorder  they  found  occasion  to  apply  them 


182 


more  than  ever.  In  France  they  availed  themselves  of 
events,  and  the  events  were  favorable  for  them.  In 
Alsace,  for  instance,  they  acted  as  auxiliaries  to  the 
peasants,  whom  they  lent  the  funds  necessary  for  the 
purchase  of  national  property.  Already  before  the  revo¬ 
lution  they  were  the  home-bred  usurers  in  this  province, 
and  the  objects  of  hatred  and  contempt;1  after  the  Revo¬ 
lution,  the  very  peasants  who  had  erstwhile  forged  quit¬ 
tances2  to  escape  from  the  clutches  of  their  creditors, 
now  appealed  to  them.  Thanks  to  the  Alsatian  J ews,  the 
new  ownership  continued,  but  they  meant  to  draw  profit 
from  it  with  a  plentiful,  usurious  hand.  The  debtors 
raised  a  protest;  they  pretended  they  would  be  ruined  if 
no  aid  were  forthcoming,  and  in  this  they  exaggerated, 
as  they,  who  previous  to  1795  had  nothing,  had  eighteen 
years  later  acquired  60,000,000  francs’  worth  of  estates 
on  which  they  owed  the  Jews  9,500,000  francs.  Never¬ 
theless,  Napoleon  lent  ear  to  them,  and  suspended,  dur¬ 
ing  one  year,  judicial  decisions  in  behalf  of  the  Jewish 
usurers  of  the  Upper  Rhine,  the  Lower  Rhine,  and  the 
Rhine  provinces.  His  work  did  not  stop  at  that.  In 
the  preambles  of  the  decree  of  suspension  of  May  30, 
1806,  he  showed  that  he  did  not  consider  the  repressive 

1  Mention  must  be  made  that,  as  in  the  Middle  ages,  the  Alsa¬ 
tian  Jews  were  the  “dummies”  and  intermediaries  of  the  Chris¬ 
tian  usurers,  (Cf.  Halphen,  Recueil  des  lois  et  decrets  concer¬ 
nant  les  Israelites,  (Paris,  1851),  and  the  Petition  des  Juifs 
établis  en  France  addressee  a  V Assemblée  nationale  le  28  janvier 
1790). 

2  On  the  Alsatian  Jews  before  and  after  the  Revolution,  con¬ 
sult  :  Grégoire,  Essai  sur  la  Regeneration  des  Juifs ;  Dohm,  De 
la  Reforme  politique  des  Juifs;  Paul  Fauchille,  La  Question 
Juive  en  France  Sous  le  premier  Empire  (Paris,  1884). 


183 


measures  sufficient,  but  wanted  the  source  of  the  evil 
done  away  with. 

“These  circumstances/’  said  he,  “caused  us  at  the 
same  time  to  consider  how  urgent  it  was  to  revive  among 
those  subjects  of  our  country  who  profess  the  Jewish 
religion,  the  sentiments  of  civic  morals,  which  have  un¬ 
fortunately  been  deadened  with  a  great  number  of  them 
through  the  state  of  humiliation  in  which  they  have 
languished  too  long,  and  which  is  not  our  intention  to 
maintain  and  renew.” 

To  revive  or  rather  to  give  birth  to  these  sentiments, 
he  wanted  to  bend  the  Jewish  religion  to  suit  his  dis¬ 
cipline,  to  hierarchize  it  as  he  had  hierarchized  the  rest 
of  the  nation,  to  make  it  conform  to  the  general  plan. 
When  first  consul  he  had  neglected  to  take  up  the  ques¬ 
tion  of  the  Jewish  religion,  and  so  he  wanted  to  make 
amends  for  this  failure  by  convoking  an  Assembly  of 
Notable  Jews  for  the  purpose  of  “considering  the  means 
of  improving  the  condition  of  the  Jewish  nation  and 
spreading  the  taste  for  the  useful  arts  and  professions 
among  its  members,”  and  of  organizing  Judaism  admin¬ 
istratively.  A  list  of  questions  was  sent  out  among 
prominent  Jews  and  when  the  answers  had  come  in,  the 
Emperor  called  together  a  Great  Sanhedrin  vested  with 
the  power  of  bestowing  a  religious  authority  upon  the 
responses  of  the  first  assembly.  The  Sanhedrin  declared 
that  the  Mosaic  law  contained  obligatory  religious  pro¬ 
visions,  and  political  provisions;  the  latter  concerned 
the  peojJe  of  Israel  when  an  autonomous  nation,  and 
had,  therefore,  lost  their  meaning  since  the  Jews  had 
scattered  among  the  nations;  it  also  forbade  to  make, 


184 


in  the  future,  any  distinctions  between  Jews  and  Chris¬ 
tians  in  the  matter  of  loans,  and  entirely  prohibited 
usury. 

These  declarations  showed  that  the  prominent  Jews 
belonging  for  the  most  part  to  the  minority  I  have 
mentioned,  knew  to  adapt  themselves  to  the  new  state 
of  affairs,  but  could  in  no  way  make  any  presumption 
upon  the  dispositions  of  the  mass.  Therein  Napoleon 
deceived  himself  ;  his  fondness  for  order,  regulation  and 
law,  his  faith  in  their  efficiency  played  him  false.  He 
doubtless  imagined  that  a  Sanhedrin  was  a  council,  but 
it  was  nothing  of  the  kind.  The  Sanhedrin  decisions 
had  absolutely  no  import  except  as  personal  opinions, 
they  were  in  no  way  binding  upon  the  Jews,  they  car¬ 
ried  no  authority,  and  there  were  no  sanctions  to  en¬ 
force  them.  The  only  piece  of  work  of  this  assembly  was 
administrative — that  of  organizing  consistories;  as  for 
the  moral  work  it  was  naught,  and  the  men  assembled 
were  incapable  of  changing  manners.  They  knew  it  too 
well  themselves,  however,  and  they  simply  recorded  what 
was  common  property;  thus  they  abolished  polygamy 
which  had  been  out  of  use  for  centuries.  It  required  the 
candor  of  Napoleon  the  legist  to  believe  that  a  synod 
could  enjoin  love  for  the  neighbor,  or  forbid  usury 
which  the  social  conditions  facilitated.  The  imperial 
prohibition  for  Jews  against  providing  substitutes  for 
military  service — this  for  the  purpose  of  making  them 
better  realize  the  grandeur  of  their  civic  duties — was 
bound  to  have  the  same  effect  as  the  prescriptions  of 
the  synod.1  The  case  was  the  same  with  the  decree  of 


1  Halphen,  Recueil  des  lois  et  decrets. 


185 


March  17,  1808,  forbidding  the  Jews  to  engage  in  com¬ 
merce  without  a  personal  license  issued  by  the  prefect, 
or  to  take  mortgages  without  authorization;  besides, 
Jews  were  forbidden  to  settle-  in  Alsace  and  the  Rhine 
provinces,  and  the  Alsacian  J ews  were  forbidden  to  enter 
other  departments  unless  to  engage  in  agriculture,2 
These  decrees  issued  for  ten  years,  did  not  turn  one  J ew 
into  an  agriculturer,  and  if  any  of  them  became  chauvin¬ 
ists,  the  obligation  of  serving  in  the  army  had  something 
to  do  with  it.  These  were  the  last  restrictive  laws  in 
France  ;  the  legal  assimilation  was  consummated  in 
1830,  when  Lafitte  had  the  Jewish  creed  incorporated  in 
the  budget.  This  meant  the  final  downfall  of  the  “Chris¬ 
tian  State,”  though  the  lay  state  was  not,  as  yet,  com¬ 
pletely  established.  The  last  trace  of  the  ancient  distinc¬ 
tions  between  J  ews  and  Christians  disappeared  with  the 
abolition  of  the  oath  More  Judaico,  in  1839.  Nor  was 
the  moral  assimilation  complete. 

So  far  we  have  been  speaking  of  the  emancipation  of 
the  French  Jews,  it  remains  to  examine  the  influence 
it  had  on  the  Jews  of  Europe.* 1  From  the  moment  of  the 

2  Halphen,  loc .  cit. 

1  In  this  book  I  shall  not  speak  of  the  modern  Jews  of  the 
Mohammedan  countries,  Turkey,  Asia  Minor,  Tripoli,  Persia. 
It  is  quite  evident  that  the  enmity  there  rests  on  quite  different 
causes  from  those  in  Christian  lands,  and  quite  different  princi¬ 
ples,  or  at  least  notions  and  instincts,  guide  the  Mohammedans. 
In  the  contemporary  meaning  of  the  word,  antisemitism  does  not 
exist  in  any  of  these  countries,  nevertheless  the  hostility  to  Jews, 
especially  popular  hositility,  is  very  great  there.  To  determine 

the  causes  thereof  it  would  require  a  special  study,  which  I 
shall  undertake  later  on  ;  in  this  study  I  shall  take  up  the  Tun¬ 
isian  and  Algerian  Jews,  with  the  understanding  that  I  shall  not 


186 


foundation  of  the  Batavian  Republic,  in  1796,  the  Na¬ 
tional  Assembly  gave  the  Jews  in  the  Netherlands  the 
rights  of  citizenship,  and  their  position  regulated  later 
by  Louis  Bonaparte  was  settled  in  a  decisive  way  by 
William  I,  in  1815.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  Dutch 
Jews  enjoyed  important  privileges  and  quite  a  deal  of 
liberty  since  the  sixteenth  century  :  the  Revolution  was 
but  the  decisive  cause  of  their  total  liberation.  In  Italy 
and  Germany  emancipation  was  brought  to  the  Jews  by 
the  armies  of  the  Republic  and  the  Empire.  Napoleon 
became  the  hero  and  god  of  Israel,  the  awaited  liberator, 
he  whose  mighty  hand  was  breaking  the  barriers  of  the 
Ghetto.  He  entered  all  cities  greeted  by  the  acclamations 
of  the  Jews — witness  the  way  in  which  Heinrich  Heine 
extolled  him — who  felt  that  their  cause  was  linked  with 
the  triumph  of  the  eagles.  And  for  this  reason  the  J ews 
were  the  first  to  feel  the  effects  of  the  Napoleonic  reac¬ 
tion,  A  return  to  anti- Judaism  went  hand  in  hand  with 
the  exaltation  of  patriotism.  The  emancipation  was  a 
French  act  ;  it  was,  therefore,  necessary  to  prove  it  bad, 
besides,  it  was  a  revolutionary  act,  and  there  was  a  re¬ 
action  against  the  Revolution  and  the  ideas  of  equality. 
While  the  Christian  State  was  being  re-established,  the 
Jews  were  being  banished.  In  Germany  in  particular 
this  antique  religious  conception  of  the  State  again  came 
to  life  with  a  new  splendor,  and  in  Germany,  especially, 


deal  with  the  grievances  of  the  French  antisémites  against  them, 
grievances  similar  to  those  which  we  are  about  to  treat  here, 
although  some  of  them,  as,  for  instance,  the  national  grievance, 
are  hardly  tenable.  I  shall  simply  deal  with  the  more  interest¬ 
ing  aspects  and  the  causes  of  hatred  between  Arabs  and  Jews. 


187 


anti-Judaism  manifested  itself  more  acutely,  but  the  re- 
vival  of  anti- Je  wish  legislation  was  general.  In  Italy 
legislation  had  been  resumed  in  1770;  in  Germany  the 
Vienna  Congress  abolished  all  imperial  provisions  for 
Jews,  leaving  them  only  the  rights  granted  by  the  lawful 
German  governments.  As  a  result  of  the  decisions  of 
the  Congress,  the  cities  and  communities  showed  them¬ 
selves  harsh  toward  the  Jews.  Lubeck  and  Bremen  ex¬ 
pelled  them  ;  like  Rome,  Frankfort  shut  them  up  anew  in 
their  ancient  quarters.1  Naturally,  popular  movements 
followed  suit  of  the  legal  measures.  At  this  moment  of 
overheated  patriotism,  any  restriction  of  the  rights  of 
strangers  met  with  approval;  for  the  Jews  were  as  ever 
the  strangers  par  excellence ,  who  best  represented  nox¬ 
ious  strangers,  and  so,  about  1820,  i.  e .,  the  moment 
when  this  state  of  minds  reached  its  paroxysm,  the  mob  ‘ 
fell,  in  many  places,  upon  the  Jews  and  badly  maltreated 
them,  even  if  it  did  not  massacre  them. 

The  thirty  years  following  the  disappearance  of  Na¬ 
poleon  did  not  witness  any  great  progress  for  the  Jews. 
In  England  where  they  were,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
treated  liberally  enough,  they  were,  nevertheless,  al¬ 
ways  considered  dissidents,  and,  like  the  Catholics,  were 
subject  to  certain  obligations.  Little  by  little  only  did 
they  see  their  condition  modified,  and  the  history  of 
their  emancipation  is  an  episode  in  the  struggle  between 
the  House  of  Commons  and  the  House  of  the  Lords. 


1  At  this  moment  the  Jews  entered  suit  against  the  city  of 
Frankfort  to  contest  the  legality  of  the  city’s  decisions.  This 
suit  was  the  occasion  of  violent  anti-Jewish  polemics. 


188 


Not  before  1860  were  they  completely  assimilated  with 
the  other  English  citizens. 

In  Austria  they  had  been  partly  emancipated  by  the 
Toleration  edict  of  Joseph  II.  (1785),  but  had  to  un¬ 
dergo  the  same  reaction;  the  Revolution  was  too  fatal 
for  the  Austrian  House,  that  the  latter  should  even  put 
up  with  this  well-nigh  equality  of  the  Jews  which  a 
democratic  and  philosophic  sovereign  had  granted. 
Only  in  1848  the  Austrian  Jews  became  citizens.1  At 
the  same  time  their  emancipation  was  achieved  in  Ger¬ 
many,2  Greece,  Sweden,  and  Denmark.  Once  more  they 
owed  their  independence  to  the  revolutionary  spirit  which 
once  again  came  from  France.  However,  we  shall  see 
that  they  were  not  strangers  to  the  great  movement 

1  The  constitution  of  March  4,  1849,  proclaimed  the  equality 
before  the  law.  But  as  this  constitution  was  abolished  in  1851, 
an  ordinance  of  July  29,  1853,  restored  the  old  legislation  against 
the  Jews.  Successive  Amendments  were  added  to  it,  and  the 
Constitution  of  1867  finally  restored  equality  before  the  law  and 
liberated  the  Jews. 

In  Hungary  the  law  emancipating  the  Jews  was  also  voted 
in  1867  by  the  Chamber  of  Deputies,  on  motion  by  the  Govern¬ 
ment.  (Cf.  Wolf,  Geschichte  der  Juden  in  Wien,  Vienna,  1876; 
Kaim,  Ein  Jahrhundert  der  Judenemancipation.  Leipzig,  1869.) 

2  The  German  Constituent  Assembly  voted  the  equality  of  all 
citizens  before  the  law,  on  May  20,  1848.  The  Parliament  of 
Frankfort  did  likewise,  and  the  principle  of  this  equality  was 
incorporated  in  the  German  constitution  of  1849.  At  any  rate 
many  States  retained  the  restrictions  against  the  Jews  till  the 
time  of  the  Law  of  the  Northern  Federation  of  July  3,  1869, 
which  abolished  all  the  “restrictions  of  civil  and  political  rights 
that  still  existed  and  were  based  on  difference  in  religion.”  (Cf. 
Kaim,  loc.  cit.  and  Allegemeine  Zeitung  des  Judenthums  for  the 
years  1837,  1849,  1856,  1867,  1869).  After  the  Franco-German 
which  had  not  adopted  it  before  the  organization  of  the  Empire, 
war,  this  law  was  forced  upon  those  States  like  Bavaria,  e.  g., 


189 


which  agitated  all  Europe;  in  some  countries,  notably 
in  Germany,  they  aided  in  preparing  it,  and  they  were 
the  advocates  of  liberty.  They  also  were  among  the  first 
to  benefit  thereby,  as  legal  anti- Judaism  may  be  said 
to  have  come  to  an  end  in  the  Occident  after  1848.  Lit¬ 
tle  by  little  the  last  obstacles  fell,  and  the  last  restric¬ 
tions  were  abolished.  The  fall  of  the  temporal  power 
of  the  Popes,  in  1870,  did  away  with  the  last  occidental 
Ghetto,  and  the  Jews  now  could  become  citizens  even  in 
St.  Peter’s  city. 

Since  then  anti- Judaism  has  transformed,  it  has  be¬ 
come  purely  literary,  it  has  come  to  be  but  an  opinion, 
and  this  opinion  has  no  longer  had  its  effect  on  laws. 
But  before  examining  this  antisemitism  of  the  pen 
which  in  certain  countries  existed  until  1870,  side  by 
side  with  restrictive  regulations,  we  must  speak  of  the 
Christian  States  of  Eastern  Europe,  where  the  anti- 
Judaism  is  even  now  legal  and  persecutionary,  i.  e.,  of 
Boumania  and  Russia. 

The  Jews  have  lived  in  Roumania,1  i.  e.,  the  Moldau- 
Valachian  lands,  since  the  fourteenth  century,  but  they 
came  there  in  numbers  at  the  beginning  of  this  century 
only,  and  are  about  300,000  in  all,  as  a  result  of  Hun¬ 
garian  and  Russian  emigration.  For  many  long  years 
they  lived  undisturbed.  They  naturally  depended  upon 
the  boyars  who  hold  the  power  in  this  country,  and  they 
leased  the  sale  of  spirits  from  these  noblemen,  who  held 
the  monopoly  therefor.  As  they  were  indispensable  to 

1  Desjardins,  Les  Juifs  de  Moldavies  (Paris,  1867). — Isidore 
Loeb,  La  Situation  des  Israelites  en  Turquie ,  en  Serbie  et  en 
Roumanie  (Paris,  1877). 


190 


the  noblemen  as  tax-collectors,  fiscal  agents  and  all  sorts 
of  middlemen,  the  nobles  were  rather  inclined  to  grant 
them  privileges,  and  they  only  had  the  excess  of  popular 
superstitions  or  passions.  The  official  persecutions  of 
the  Jews  began  only  in  1856,  when  Roumania  adopted 
the  representative  system  and  the  power  thus  fell  into 
the  hands  of  the  bourgeois  class.  The  Paris  treaty  of 
1858,  which  preceded  the  union  of  Moldavia  and  Yal- 
achia,  bestowed  the  enjoyment  of  civil  rights  upon  the 
Moldau-Valachians  without  distinction  of  creed .  De¬ 
spite  the  formal  text  of  the  treaty,  the  J ews  were  denied 
the  benefits  of  naturalization,  and  replying  to  represen¬ 
tation  made  to  it  the  Roumanian  government  asserted 
that  the  Jews  were  aliens.  Thenceforth  restrictive 
measures  grew  more  serious.  The  J  ews  could  not  obtain 
any  rank,  they  were  deprived  of  the  right  of  permanent 
domicile  in  country  places,  they  were  forbidden  to  hold 
real  estate — except  in  cities — or  lands,  or  vineyards. 
They  were  prohibited  to  take  estates  on  lease,  to  keep 
hotels  and  taverns  outside  of  cities,  to  retail  spirits,  to 
have  Christian  domestics,  to  build  new  synagogues. 
Some  of  these  decisions  were  passed  arbitrarily  by  cer¬ 
tain  municipalities;  in  other  villages,  on  the  contrary, 
the  Jews  were  tolerated.  This  state  of  affairs  lasted  till 
1867.  At  this  time  the  minister  Jean  Bratiano  pub¬ 
lished  a  circular  in  which  he  recalled  to  mind  the  fact 
that  the  Jews  had  no  right  to  live  in  rural  communities, 
or  to  take  there  property  on  lease.  As  a  result  of  this 
circular  the  Jews  were  expelled  from  the  villages  they 
inhabited,  they  were  condemned  like  vagabonds,  and  the 
expulsions  continued  till  1877;  they  were  generally 


191 


called  forth  by  the  uprisings  in  Bucharest,  Yassy, 
Galatz,  Tecucin,  as  well  as  in  other  places,  and  during 
these  uprisings  cemeteries  were  profaned  and  synagogues 
burned. 

What  were,  what  are  still  the  causes  of  this  special 
legislation,  and  of  this  animosity  of  the  Roumanians 
towards  the  Jews?  They  are  not  exclusively  religious, 
and  despite  the  persistence  of  ancestral  prejudices,  it 
is  not  a  case  of  a  confessional  war.  The  Roumanian 
Jews  constituted,  especially  at  the  moment  of  the  for¬ 
mation  of  Roumania,  agglomerations  completely  isolated 
from  the  bulk  of  the  population  in  the  Moldau-Val- 
achian  lands.1  They  wore  a  special  garb,  lived  in  quar¬ 
ters  set  apart  in  order  to  escape  contaminations,  and 
spoke  a  Judaeo-German  jargon,  which  rounded  off  their 
marks  of  distinction.  They  lived  under  the  domination 
of  their  rabbis,  narrow-minded,  limited,  ignorant  Tal¬ 
mudists,  from  whom  they  received  in  Jewish  schools — 
lieder — and  education  which  was  conducive  to  their  in¬ 
tellectual  abasement  and  their  degradation. 

They  were  the  victims  of  this  isolation  which  was  due 
to  their  guides,  the  rabbinists.  The  patriotic  passions 
were  particularly  aroused  in  this  land,  which  was  being 
born,  was  acquiring  a  nationality  and  striving  for  unity. 
There  has  been  a  pan-Roumanism,  just  like  pan-Ger¬ 
manism  or  pan-Slavism.  There  were  discussions  on  the 


1  This  condition  has  not  changed  since,  and  only  a  small  num¬ 
ber  of  Jews,  by  entering  universities  and  obtaining  there  intel¬ 
lectual  development,  succeeded  in  tearing  themselves  away  from 
the  exclusionist  prejudices  of  the  mass  which  is  still  sunk  in  the 
stupor,  from  which  antitalmudic  instruction  alone  can  recover  it. 


192 


Roumanian  race,  on  its  integrity,  its  purity,  the  danger 
threatening  it  from  adulteration.  Associations  were 
formed  to  counteract  foreign  encroachment,  and  Jewish 
encroachment  in  particular.  Schoolmasters,  university 
professors  were  the  soul  of  these  societies;  just  as  in 
Germany,  they  were  the  most  active  antisémites.  They 
looked  upon  the  Jews  as  agents  and  apostles  of  Ger¬ 
manism,  and  they  became  the  instigators  of  restrictive 
legislation  in  order  to  repel  and  restrain  them.  They 
reproached  the  Jews  with  forming  a  state  within  a 
state,  which  was  true,  but — and  that  is  the  everlasting 
inconsistency  of  anti- Judaism — they  passed  laws  to  re¬ 
tain  them  in  the  condition  they  considered  dangerous. 
They  asserted  that  the  Jewish  education  crippled  the 
brains  of  those  receiving  it,  that  it  rendered  them  unfit 
for  social  life,  which  was  but  too  correct,  and  yet  they 
were  going  to  shut  the  J ews  out  completely  from  obtain¬ 
ing  the  education  given  to  Christians,  exactly  the  one 
that  would  lift  them  from  their  degradation. 

But  the  college-bred  were  not  the  sole  anti¬ 
sémites  in  Roumania,  and  there  were  economic  causes 
beside  patriotic  causes.  As  I  have  said,  antisemitism 
was  born  with  the  advent  of  the  bourgeoisie,  because  this 
bourgeois  class,  composed  of  merchants  and  manufac¬ 
turers,  came  into  competition  with  the  Jews  who  dis¬ 
played  their  activity  exclusively  in  commerce  and  in¬ 
dustry,  when  not  in  usury.  The  bourgeoisie  had  every 
interest  in  the  passage  of  protective  laws,  which,  though 
nominally  directed  at  strangers  and  not  at  the  Jews, 
principally  aimed  at  placing  obstacles  to  the  expansion 
of  their  formidable  rivals.  It  achieved  its  point  by 


193 


skilfully  fomenting  disturbances  which  gave  their  rep¬ 
resentatives  in  Parliament  a  chance  to  propose  new 
regulations.  Thus  these  diverse  causes  of  antisemitism 
may  be  reduced  to  a  single  one — national  protection¬ 
ism — and  very  clever  it  is,  as  simultaneously  with  deny¬ 
ing  the  Jews  all  civic  rights  on  the  ground  that  they  are 
strangers,  it  forces  them  into  military  service,  which 
again  is  a  contradiction,  as  none  but  a  citizen  can  form 
a  part  of  a  national  army.1 

Harder  still,  more  miserable  than  in  Roumania,  is 
the  condition  of  the  Jews  in  Russia.  Their  history  in  that 
country,  where  they  arrived  in  the  third  century  B.  C. 
and  founded  colonies  in  Crimea,  has  been  that  of  the 
Jews  of  all  Europe.  They  were  banished  in  the  twelfth 
century  never  to  be  recalled.  Nevertheless,  at  present 
Russia  counts  4,500,000  Jews  (see  footnote),  and  to  say, 
as  the  antisémites  maintain,  that  the  Jews  have  invaded 
it  is  nonsense,  for  Russia  has  acquired  them  by  seizing 
White  Russia  in  1769  and  late  on  the  Polish  provinces 
and  Crimea,  which  contained  a  great  number  of  Jews.  At 
the  moment  of  this  conquest  it  was  out  of  the  question 
to  apply  the  ukase  of  1742  which  banished  the  Jews 
once  more.  On  the  one  hand,  it  was  not  an  easy  thing 
to  drive  out  several  million  individuals  into  the  neigh¬ 
boring  states  ;  on  the  other,  commerce,  industry, 
and  particularly  the  treasury,  would  have  fared  ill  from 
such  wholesale  expulsion.  Catherine  II.  then  granted 
the  Jews  equal  rights  with  her  Russian  subjects,  but  the 

1 1  believe  the  truth  of  this  will  be  admitted  by  the  most  irra¬ 
tional  chauvinist,  be  he  a  Turk,  Bulgarian,  Russian,  German, 
Englishman  or  even  a  Frenchman. 


194 


Senate  ukases  of  1786,  1791  and  1794  curtailed  these 
privileges  and  confined  the  Israelites  within  White  Rus¬ 
sia  and  Crimea — thenceforth  constituting  the  Jewish 
territory — and  Poland.  Only  in  certain  cases  and  under 
special  conditions  were  they  allowed  to  leave  the  limits 
of  this  territorial  Ghetto. 

In  Russia  all  modern  antisemitism,  which  is  official 
antisemitism  par  excellence ,  consists  in  keeping  the 
Jews  from  escaping  the  Senate  ukases  just  spoken  of. 
Russia  has  resigned  herself  to  her  J ews,  but  she  wants  to 
leave  them  where  she  found  them.  Still  there  were 
favorable  or  rather  less  unfavorable  times  for  the 
Jews.  Alexander  I.  permitted  them  in  1808  to 
settle  in  the  crown  lands  on  condition  of  engaging  there 
in  agriculture;  Nicholas  I.  gave  them  permission  to 
travel  when  their  business  required  it,  they  were  allowed 
to  attend  the  universities  ;  and  under  Alexander  II.  their 
position  improved  still  further.1 

After  the  death  of  Alexander  II.  the  autocratic  re¬ 
action  became  monstrous  in  Russia:  an  abominable  re¬ 
awakening  of  absolutism  was  the  answer  to  the  bomb  of 


1  N.  de  Gradovski,  La  Situation  legale  des  Israelites  en  Russie 
(Paris,  1891). — Tikhomirov,  La  Russie  politique  et  sociale 
(Paris,  1888). — Les  Juifs  de  Russie  (Paris,  1891). — Prince 
Demidoff-San-Donato,  La  question  juive  en  Russie  (Bruxelles, 
1884). — Anatole  Leroy-Beaulieu,  L’Empire  des  Tzars  et  les 
Russes  (Paris,  1881-82-89).  [English  translation,  London  and 
New  York,  1894]. — Weber  et  Kempster,  La  Situation  des  Juifs 
en  Russie  (  Resume  of  a  report  to  the  United  States  Government 
by  its  delegates  ) . — Leo  Errera,  Les  juifs  Russes  (  Bruxelles, 
1893). — Harold  Frederic,  The  New  Exodus  (1892). 


195 


the  nihilists.  The  national  orthodox  spirit  was  overex¬ 
cited,  the  liberal  and  revolutionary  movement  was 
charged  to  foreign  influences,  and  the  Jews  were  made 
the  scapegoats,  in  order  to  divert  the  people  from  the 
nihilistic  propaganda;  hence  the  massacres  of  1881  and 
1882,  during  which  the  mob  burned  Jewish  houses, 
robbed  and  killed  the  Jews,  saying:  “Our  daddy,  the 
Tsar,  wants  it.” 

After  these  disturbances  General  Ignatyeff  promul¬ 
gated  the  “May  Laws”  of  1882.  They  read  as  follows: 

1.  As  a  temporary  measure  and  until  the  general 
revision  of  the  laws  regulating  their  status,  Jews  are  for¬ 
bidden  to  settle  hereafter  outside  of  cities  and  towns. 
Exception  is  made  with  regard  to  J ewish  villages  already 
in  existence  where  the  Jews  are  engaged  in  agriculture. 

2.  Until  further  order  all  contracts  for  the  mortgaging 
or  renting  of  real  estate  situated  outside  of  cities  and 
towns  to  a  Jew,  shall  be  of  no  effect.  Equally  void  is 
any  power  of  attorney  granted  to  a  Jew  for  the  adminis¬ 
tration  or  disposition  of  property  of  the  above-indicated 
nature. 

3.  Jews  are  forbidden  to  do  business  on  Sundays  and 
Christian  holidays;  the  laws  compelling  Christians  to 
close  their  places  of  business  on  those  da}rs  will  be  ap¬ 
plied  to  J  ewish  places  of  business. 

4.  The  above  measures  are  applicable  only  in  the 
governments  situated  within  the  Jewish  pale  of  settle¬ 
ment. 

These  laws  were  enacted  as  a  temporary  measure.  Ac¬ 
cordingly,  a  commission  presided  over  by  Count  Pahlen 
met  in  1883  to  settle  finally  the  Jewish  question.  The 


196 


conclusions  of  this  commission  were  quite  liberal  in 
spirit;  it  recommended  that  certain  civil  rights  be  given 
to  the  Jews.  Owing  to  the  influence  of  Pobyedonostseff, 
the  Procurator  of  the  Holy  Synod,  the  report  of  the 
Pahlen  Commission  was  buried,  and  the  May  Laws  have 
remained  in  force.  Since  that  time,  and  especially  from 
1890  on,  the  persecutions  redoubled.  The  “pale”  was 
narrowed  by  forbidding  the  J ews  to  enter  certain  forti¬ 
fied  places,  and  by  creating  a  frontier  belt  where  the 
Jews  could  not  reside.  The  ukase  of  1865  of  Alex¬ 
ander  II.,  allowing  “skilled”  artisans  to  choose  a  do¬ 
micile  throughout  the  empire  was  abrogated.  Thus 
nearly  3,000,000  Jews  were  crowded  into  the  cities  of 
the  pale  of  settlement,  while  a  million  was  spread  over 
Poland,  and  500,000  privileged — merchants  of  the  first 
rank,  financiers  and  students — all  over  Russia. 

In  the  cities  of  the  pale  of  settlement  the  Jews  con¬ 
stitute  a  majority,  and  the  conditions  of  their  exist¬ 
ence  are  frightful.  Crowded  in  unhealthy  habitations, 
where  they  live  in  the  worst  of  poverty,  ravaged  by  mis¬ 
ery  beside  which  the  misery  found  in  Paris,  Berlin  and 
London  is  prosperity;  with  “slack-time”  during  a  part 
of  the  year,  with  work  during  the  other  part  on  con¬ 
dition  of  accepting  wages  so  ridiculously  low  that 
their  scale  often  falls  to  8  or  10  cents  a  day  ;  multiplying 
incessantly  because  of  their  very  destitution,  these 
wretches  are  in  the  slow  agonies  of  death  and  are  the 
foreordained  victims  of  cholera,  typhoid  fever  and  all 
pests.  Prom  day  to  day  their  condition  grows  more 
serious,  their  distress  increases,  they  are  crowded  to¬ 
gether  in  the  cities  like  cattle,  without  hope  of  deliver- 


197  — 


ance  in  sight  ;  they  have  only  the  choice  of  three  things  ; 
conversion,  emigration  or  death.  It  is  just  what  the 
Procurator  of  the  Holy  Synod,  Pobyedonostseff  foresaw, 
when  he  demanded  the  application  of  the  Ignatyeff  Laws. 

Other  measures,  besides  this  systematic  crowding, 
were  taken  against  the  Jews.  They  were  shut  out  of 
certain  occupations  and  certain  professions;  those  shel¬ 
tered  in  hospitals  as  invalids  were  sent  away  ;  employees 
of  railroads  and  steamship  companies  were  dismissed; 
the  number  of  those  who  could  enter  universi¬ 
ties,  colleges  and  high  schools  was  limited  ;  they 

were  barred  from  becoming  attorneys,  physicians, 

engineers,  or  at  least  their  opportunties  for  en¬ 

tering  these  professions  were  restricted;  even  their 
own  schools  were  closed  to  them,  they  are  not 

admittd  even  to  hospitals,  they  are  burdened  with  special 
taxes  on  their  rents,  inheritances,  the  animals  they  kill 
for  meat,  the  candles  they  light  on  Friday  evenings,  the 
skull-caps  they  wear  during  religious  ceremonies,  even 
when  these  are  of  a  private  nature. 

Besides  these  official  taxes  imposed  by  the  government, 
the  Jews  are  under  the  exploitation  of  the  Russian  ad¬ 
ministration  and  police,  the  basest,  the  most  corrupt  and 
venal  in  all  Europe.  Half  the  income  of  the  middle 
class  Jews,  says  Weber  and  Kempster,  and  Harold  Fred¬ 
eric,  goes  to  the  police.  Every  Jew  in  easy  circum¬ 
stances  is  the  victim  of  constant  extortion.  As  for  those 
(and  they  are  the  majority),  who  are  too  poor  to  be 
able  to  pay,  they  are  subjected  to  the  most  loathsome, 
most  inhuman  treatment,  forced  to  bow  to  all  the  whims 


1  Loc.  cit. 


198 


of  brutal  policemen  who  domineer  and  martyrize  them, 
as  they  martyrize  also  the  nihilists  and  the  suspects  of 
liberalism  whom  the  horrible  autocracy  of  the  Tsar 
places  in  their  power.2 

Why  this  treatment,  this  abominable  persecution  ? 
Because,  say  the  antisémites,  these  four  and  a  half  mil¬ 
lion  Jews  exploit  the  ninety  million  Russians.  How  do 
they  exploit  them  ?  By  usuary.  Still  nine-tenths  of  the 
Russian  Jews  own  nothing,  there  are  hardly  ten  to 
fifteen  thousand  Jews  in  Russia  who  possess  capital. 
Of  these  ten  to  fifteen  thousand  some  are  merchants, 
others  are  money  lenders  and  probably  usurers;  finally, 
an  insignificant  minority  who  have  from  time  immem¬ 
orial  lived  in  villages,  lend  money  to  the  peasants.  True, 
these  few  were  driven  from  the  villages,  but  the  mer¬ 
chants,  financiers,  and  all  those  in  general,  who  are  rich 
and  can  pay  for  the  privileges,  were  left  quite  undis¬ 
turbed.  If,  therefore,  the  exploiters  were  aimed  at,  a 
mistake  was  made,  because  the  artisans  and  poor 
wretches  were  chiefly  hit  by  it.  Has  at  least  the  condi¬ 
tion  of  the  peasants  improved  ?  Ho.  The  Russian  peas¬ 
ant,  burdened  with  taxes  since  the  time  of  his  emanci¬ 
pation,  exploited  by  the  fisc  and  the  officers  of  the  gov¬ 
ernment  agents,  is  the  fated  prey  of  usurers.  The  Jew’s 
place  was  everywhere  taken  by  the  kulak* *  (a  peasant 

2  The  condition  of  the  Jews  in  Russia,  compared  with  that  of 
the  native  people,  is  absolutely  the  same  as  in  the  Middle  Ages. 
The  Russian  peasant  and  the  workingman  are  pretty  nearly  as 
wretched  as  the  Jew.  They,  too,  are  subjected  to  annoyances 
and  arbitrary  rule,  but  they  are  not  persecuted,  and  have, 
to  a  certain  degree  the  right  of  migrating. 

*  Russ,  kulak,  literally  fist. 


199 


usurer) ,  who,,  even  previously  had  been  playing  havoc 
in  all  Eussian  villages  where  there  were  no  Jews — i.  e.> 
in  the  majority  of  the  country  districts.  But  no  meas¬ 
ures  were  taken  against  the  Tculalc.  Thus,  the  expulsion 
of  the  Jews  has  not  for  its  object  the  protection  of  the 
peasants.  They  also  turn  people  to  drunkenness,  we  are 
asssured.  But  Katkoff,  who  could  not  be  suspected  of 
bias  in  favor  of  the  Jews,  said  more  than  once  that  al¬ 
coholism  is  much  more  widespread  in  central  and  north¬ 
ern  Eussia,  where  there  are  no  Jews,  than  in  the  South¬ 
west,  where  they  are  engaged  in  inn-keeping.  It  is  quite 
natural  :  alcohol,  which  becomes  a  necessity  to  the 
wretches  whose  nourishment  is  insufficient,  is  still  more 
necessary  in  the  cold  countries.  Though  the  Jews  may 
not  be  saloon-keepers  and  others  may  replace  them,  yet 
the  expulsion  of  the  Jews  is  not  a  fight  against  alcohol¬ 
ism,  as  no  measure  has  been  taken  against  the  Christian 
retailers  who  outnumber  the  J ewish  retailers. 

We  shall  not  deal  with  the  frauds  with  which  Jewish 
business  men  are  charged,  as  exactly  these  business  men 
occupy  a  privileged  position  ;  as  for  the  lawlessness  of  a 
part  of  the  miserable  mass,  those  of  whom  it  is  made  up 
“would  not  have  food  if  they  did  not  rob,”* 1  and  so  they 
are  in  the  same  position  with  a  great  number  of  orthodox 
Eussians  whom  the  social  and  economic  condition  of 
Eussia  forces  to  resort  to  unscrupulous  methods,  in  order 
to  make  a  living.2 

3  A  great  part  of  these  grievances  is  better  founded  with  ref¬ 
erence  to  the  Jews  of  Poland,  and  yet  the  Jews  there  are  not 
driven  back  into  cities  as  are  those  of  the  “pale  of  settlement.’ 

1  Tikhomirov,  loc.  cit. 


What  are  then  the  real  causes  of  antisemitism?  They 
are  political  and  religions.  Antisemitism  is  by  no  means 
a  popular  movement  in  Russia  ;  it  is  purely  official.  The 
Russian  people,  laden  with  misery,  crushed  under  taxes, 
groaning  under  the  most  atrocious  of  tyrannies,  embit¬ 
tered  by  administrative  violence  and  governmental  abuse 
of  power,  burdened  with  suffering  and  humiliation 
is  in  an  unberable  condition.  Generally  resigned,  they 
are  liable  to  yield  to  passions  ;  their  uprisings  and  revolts 
are  formidable;  antisemitic  riots  are  the  proper  thing 
to  divert  popular  anger,  and  that  is  why  the  govern¬ 
ment  encouraged  them  and  often  provoked  them.  As 
to  the  peasants  and  workingmen,  they  fell  upon  the 
Jews  because,  they  said,  “the  Jew  and  the  nobleman 
are  of  a  pair,  only  it  is  easy  to  thrash  the  Jew.1  Thus 
is  explained  the  plundering  of  rich  Jewish  merchants, 
of  wealthy  money-lenders,  often  of  poor  Jewish  work¬ 
men,  and  it  is  heart-rending  to  see  these  disinherited  fall 
upon  one  another  instead  of  uniting  against  the  op¬ 
pressive  tsarism. 

The  possibility  of  a  union  between  these  two  camps 
of  misery  is,  perhaps,  foreseen  by  those  whose  interest 
it  is  to  engender  and  keep  their  antagonism  and  who 
actually  saw  the  rioters  burn  many  Christian  houses 
during  the  riots  of  1881  and  1882.  After  Alexander 
II.’s  death  it  became  urgent  to  blot  out  of  the  moujiks’ 
and  proletarians’  memories  the  nihilists’  attempts  at 
liberation.  The  revolution  was  more  than  ever  the 
frightful  hydra  and  dragon,  against  which  Holy  Russ 


1  Tikhomirov,  loc.  cit. 


201 


was  to  be  protected.  To  accomplish  it  a  return  to  ortho¬ 
dox  ideas  was  thought  necessary.  All  evil,  it  was  said, 
comes  from  the  foreign,  the  heretical,  that  which  pollutes 
the  sacred  soil.  It  was  the  theory  of  Ignatyeff,  of  Pobyed- 
onostseff,  and  of  the  Holy  Synod,  and  doubtless  of  the 
unhappy  Alexander  III.,  whom  fear  drove  insane,  and 
whom  Polyedonostseff  guided  like  a  weak-minded  child. 
A  rush  was  made  against  the  Jews,  just  as  measures 
were  taken  against  Germans,  Catholics,  Lutherans, 
against  all  those  who  were  not  of  the  Slavic  race  and 
did  not  belong  to  the  Greek  orthodox  church.1  At  all 
events,  the  persecution  of  the  Jews  was  more  active,  for 
with  regard  to  them  no  attention  had  to  be  paid  to  dip¬ 
lomatic  discretion  with  which  they  came  into  a  clash  in 
the  case  of  the  Catholics,  Lutheraus  or  Germans.  Had 
the  Russian  Catholics  been  massacred,  all  Europe  would 
have  arisen;  the  Jews  could  be  killed  with  impunity. 
However,  just  like  the  Roumanian  Jews,  the  Jews  of 
Russia  are  distinguished  from  the  rest  of  the  population 
by  their  manners,  customs  and  education — excepting 
an  enlightened  very  intelligent  minority  of  young  J ews, 
who  rushed  into  the  universities  before  their  doors 
were  closed  on  them.  They  have  an  internal  organiza¬ 
tion — the  KaJial ,  which  gives  them  a  sort  of  self-govern¬ 
ment,  and  to-  denounce  them  as  dangerous  is  easier,  as 
well  as  of  great  benefit  to  established  institutions  and 

1  One  of  the  queerest  things  is  the  approval  given  by  certain 
religious  antisémites  of  France  and  Germany — through  chauv¬ 
inism  or  passion — to  the  actions  of  the  Tsar’s  government.  In 
approving  the  Tsar’s  persecution  against  the  Jews,  they  im¬ 
plicitly  approve  those  against  the  Catholics  and  Lutherans, 
who  are  so  dear  to  them. 


202 


the  orthodox  capitalists  who  thus  escape  the  popular 
passions  whose  explosion  is  ever  to  be  feared. 

The  religious  origin  of  the  official  antisemitism  has 
often  been  denied  ;  yet  it  cannot  be  denied,  and  the  Rus¬ 
sians  will  yet  probably  give  up  even  Panslavism  in 
order  to  arrive  at  religious  unity,  a  unity  which  to  some 
of  them,  at  least,  seems  indispensable  for  the  unity  of 
the  State.  The  national  and  the  religious  question  are  but 
one  in  Russia,  the  Tsar  being  simultaneously  the  tem¬ 
poral  and  spiritual  head,  Caesar  and  Pope;  but  to  faith 
more  importance  is  attached  than  to  race,  and  the  proof 
is  that  a  Jew  who  is  willing  to  be  converted  is  not  perse¬ 
cuted.  On  the  contrary,  the  Jew  is  encouraged  to  em¬ 
brace  orthodoxy.  From  fourteen  years  of  age  on,  any 
Jewish  child  may  be  baptized  against  the  will  of  his 
parents;  a  convert  when  married  is  free  from  the  ties 
which  unite  him  with  his  wife  or  children,  a  woman  con¬ 
vert  cancels  her  matrimonial  ties  by  the  very  process  of 
her  conversion,  but  the  non-converted  consorts  are  always 
treated  as  married.  Finally,  when  baptizing,  adult  con¬ 
verts  receive  from  fifteen  to  thirty  rubles,  and  children 
from  seven  to  fifteen  rubles.  To  induce  the  Jews  still 
further  to  embrace  the  Greek  faith,  the  rabbinical  schools 
were  suppressed  ;  the  number  of  synagogueswas  limited — 
the  Moscow  synagogue  was  closed  up  in  1892  as  “an  in¬ 
decent  thing;” — Jews  are  even  forbidden  to  gather  for 
prayer.  What  then  becomes  of  the  antisémites’  com¬ 
plaints  against  the  Jews  if  they  admit  into  their  midst 
converted  Jews,  knowing  as  they  do  perfectly  well 
that  baptism  would  not  make  those  who  are  not  artisans. 


203 


but  middlemen  and  capitalists1  change  their  positive 
function  in  the  community.. 

Thus  we  may  say  that  in  eastern  Europe  where  the 
actual  condition  of  the  Jews  fairly  well  represents 
what  had  been  their  condition  in  the  Middle  Ages,  the 
causes  of  antisemitism  are  twofold:  social  causes,  and 
religious  causes  combined  with  patriotic  ones.  It  now 
remains  for  us  to  see  what  are  the  causes  that  maintain 
antisemitism  in  the  countries  where  it  has  become  anti¬ 
semitism  of  the  pen  instead  of  legal  antisemitism,  and, 
first  of  all,  to  examine  this  transformation  and  the  phen¬ 
omena  to  which  it  has  given  rise. 


*1  could  but  sketch  the  general  outlines  of  Roumanian 
and  Russian  antisemitism.  To  make  a  complete  story  of  them 
would  require  more  than  these  few  pages,  within  which  it  was 
impossible  to  give  a  social  picture  of  Roumania  and  Russia,  and 
to  expound  the  moral,  psychological,  ethnological  and  economic 
position  of  the  Jews  in  these  countries. 


204 


CHAPTER  IX. 

MODERN  ANTISEMITISM  AND  ITS  LITERATURE. 

The  Emancipated  Jew  and  the  Nations. — The  Jews  and 
the  Economic  Revolution. — The  Bourgeoisie  and 
the  Jews. — The  Transformation  of  Anti- Judaism. 
— Anti- J  udaism  and  Antisemitism. — Instinctive 
Anti- Judaism  and  Antisemitism  of  the  Reason. — 
Legal  Anti- Judaism  and  Antisemitism  oi  the  Pen. 
— Classification  of  the  Antisemitic  Literature. — 
Christian  Antisemitism  and  the  Anti- Judaism  of 
the  Middle  Ages. — Anti-Talmudism. — Gougenot  de 
Mousseaux,,  Chiarini,  Rohling. — Christian-Socialist 
Antisemitism. — Barruel,  Eckert,  Don  Deschamps. — 
Chabeautv. — Edouard  Drumont  and  the  Pastor 

4/ 

Stoecker. — Economic  Antisemitism. — Fourier  and 
Proudhon;  Toussenel,  Capefigue,  Otto  Glaguu. — 
Ethnological  and  National  Antisemitism. — Hegel¬ 
ianism  and  the  Race  Idea. — W.  Marr,  Treitschke, 
Schoenerer. — Metaphysical  Antisemitism. — Scho¬ 
penhauer. — Hegel  and  the  Hegelian  Extreme  Left. 
— Max  Stirner. — Diihring,  Nietzsche  and  Anti¬ 
christian  Antisemitism. — Revolutionary  Antisem¬ 
itism. — Gustave  Tridon. — The  Complaints  of  the 
Antisémites,  and  the  Causes  of  Antisemitism. 


The  emancipated  Jews  scattered  among  the  nations 
just  like  strangers,  and,  as  we  have  seen,  it  could  not  be 


205 


otherwise,  since  for  centuries  they  formed  a  nation 
among  the  nations,  a  special  people  preserving  its  char¬ 
acteristics  thanks  to  the  strict  and  precise  ritual,  as  well 
as  owing  to  the  legislation  which  kept  it  apart  and  tend¬ 
ed  to  perpetuate  it.  As  conquerors,  not  as  guests  did 
they  come  into  modern  societies.  They  were  like  a 
penned-in  flock;  suddenly  the  barriers  fell  and  they 
rushed  upon  the  field  opened  to  them.  They  were  not 
warriors,  what  is  more,  the  moment  was  not  favorable 
to  an  expedition  of  a  small  band,  but  they  made  the  only 
conquest  for  which  they  were  armed,  the  economic  con¬ 
quest  for  which  they  had  been  preparing  for  so  many 
long  years.  They  were  a  race  of  merchants  and  money- 
dealers,  perhaps  degraded  by  mercantile  practice,  but, 
thanks  to  this  very  practice,  equipped  with  qualities 
which  were  becoming  preponderant  in  the  new  economic 
system.  And  so  it  was  easy  for  them  to  take  to  com¬ 
merce  and  finances,  and,  it  must  be  repeated,  they  could 
not  act  otherwise.  Crowded  together,  oppressed  for  cen¬ 
turies,  ever  curbed  in  their  soarings,  they  had  acquired 
a  formidable  power  of  expansion,  and  this  power  could 
find  application  in  certain  channels  only;  their  efforts 
were  limited,  but  their  nature  was  not  changed,  and  it 
was  not  changed  on  the  day  of  their  liberation  either, 
and  they  marched  ahead  on  the  road  which  was  familiar 
to  them.  However,  the  state  of  affairs  was  particularly 
favorable  to  them.  At  this  period  of  great  overthrows 
and  reconstructions,  when  nations  were  being  modified, 
new  principles  established,  new  social,  moral  and  meta¬ 
physical  conceptions  wrought  out,  they  were  the  only 
ones  to  be  free.  They  were  without  any  attachments  to 


206 


those  surrounding  them  ;  they  had  no  ancient  patrimony 
to  defend,  the  heritage  which  the  former  society  was 
leaving  to  nascent  society  was  not  theirs;  the  thousand 
ancestral  ties  which  linked  the  citizens  of  the  modern 
state  with  the  past,  could  not  influence  their  conduct, 
their  intellectuality,  their  morality;  their  spirit  had  no 
shackles. 

I  have  shown  that  their  liberation  could  not  change 
them,  that  a  number  of  them  regretted  their  past  of 
isolation,  and  even  if  they  did  endeavor  to  remain  them¬ 
selves,  if  they  did  not  assimilate,  they  marvelously 
adapted  themselves,  by  the  very  force  of  their  special 
tendencies,  to  the  economic  conditions  which  had  af¬ 
fected  the  nations  since  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth 
century. 

The  French  Revolution  was  above  all  an  economic 
revolution.  If  it  is  considered  as  the  termination  of  a 
struggle  between  classes,  it  must  be  viewed  as  the  con¬ 
summation  of  a  struggle  between  two  forms  of  capital, 
viz.  :  real  property  and  personal  property,  or  landed  cap¬ 
ital,  and  industrial  and  speculative  capital.  With  the 
supremacy  of  the  nobility  the  supremacy  of  landed 
capital  disappeared,  too,  and  the  supremacy  of  the  bour¬ 
geoisie  brought  on  the  supremacy  of  industrial  and 
speculative  capital.  The  emancipation  of  the  Jew  is 
linked  with  the  growth  of  the  prevalence  of  industrial 
capital.  So  long  as  landed  capital  retained  the  political 
power,  the  Jew  was  deprived  of  any  right;  the  Jew  was 
liberated  on  the  day  when  political  power  passed  to  in¬ 
dustrial  capital,  and  that  proved  fatal.  The  bourgeoisie 
needed  help  in  the  struggle  it  undertook;  the  Jew  was 


207 


for  it  a  valuable  ally,  whom  it  was  its  interest  to  eman¬ 
cipate.  Since  the  days  of  the  Revolution,  Jew  and  bour¬ 
geois  marched  hand  in  hand,  together  they  sustained 
Napoleon  at  the  moment  when  dictatorship  became  nec¬ 
essary  to  defend  the  privileges  gained  by  the  Third 
Estate,  and  when  the  imperial  tyranny  became  too  heavy 
and  oppressive  for  capitalism  the  bourgeois  and  the  J ew, 
united  and  preluded  the  fall  of  the  Empire  by  fore¬ 
stalling  provisions  at  the  time  of  the  Russian  campaign 
and  helped  to  bring  about  the  final  disaster  by  calling 
forth  slumps  at  the  exchange  and  buying  the  disloyalty 
of  marshals. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  great  industrial  development, 
after  1815,  when  canal,  mine,  and  insurance  com¬ 
panies  were  formed,  the  Jews  were  among  the  most  ac¬ 
tive  in  promoting  combination  of  capital.  Moreover,  they 
were  the  most  skilful,  because  the  spirit  of  combination 
had  for  centuries  been  their  only  support.  But  they 
were  not  content  to  aid  in  bringing  about  in  this  prac¬ 
tical  way  the  triumph  of  industrialism,  they  gave  their 
aid  in  a  theoretical  way,  also.  They  gathered  around 
Saint-Simon,  the  philosopher  of  the  bourgeoisie  ; 
they  worked  at  diffusing  and  developing  his  teaching. 
Saint-Simon  had  said  :x  “The  manufacturers  must 
be  entrusted  with  the  administration  of  the  temporal 
power, ”  and  “the  last  step  that  remains  for  industry  to 
make  is  to  obtain  the  direction  of  the  State  and  the  chief 
problem  of  our  time  is  to  secure  to  industry  a  majority 


1  Saint-Simon,  Du  Système  industriel  (Paris,  1821). 


208 


in  our  parliaments.”  He  had  added:2  “The  industrial 
class  must  occupy  the  first  rank,  because  it  is  the  most 
important  of  all  ;  because  it  can  do  without  all  the  others, 
while  none  other  can  do  without  it;  because  it  exists  by 
its  own  forces,  by  its  personal  labors.  The  other  classes 
must  work  for  it,  because  they  are  its  creatures  and  be¬ 
cause  it  sustains  their  existence  ;  in  a  word,  as  everything 
is  made  by  industry,  everything  must  be  made  for  it.” 
The  Jews  helped  to  realize  the  Saint-Simonian 
dream;  they  proved  themselves  the  most  trustworthy 
allies  of  the  bourgeoisie,  inasmuch  as  in  working  for  it 
they  worked  for  themselves  and,  in  all  Europe,  they 
were  in  the  front  rank  of  the  liberal  movement,  which 
from  1815  till  1848  succeeded  in  establishing  the  dom¬ 
ination  of  bourgeois  capitalism. 

This  role  of  the  Jews  did  not  escape  the  class  of 
landed  capitalists,  and  we  shall  see  that  therein  lay  one 
of  the  causes  of  the  anti- Judaism  of  the  conservatives, 
but  to  the  Jews  it  was  not  worth  so  much  as  the  recosr- 
nition  of  the  bourgeoisie.  When  the  latter  had  firmly 
established  its  power,  when  it  became  restful  and  secure, 
it  discovered  that  its  ally,  the  Jew,  was  its  formidable 
competitor,  and  it  reacted  against  it.  Thus  the  conser¬ 
vative  parties,  made  up,  as  a  rule,  of  capitalist  agricul¬ 
tures,  became  anti- Jewish  in  their  fight  against  indus¬ 
trial  and  speculative  capitalism,  represented  chiefly 
by  the  Jew,  and  industrial  and  speculative  capitalism 
became  anti- Jewish  in  its  turn,  on  account  of  Jewish 
competition.  Anti- Judaism,  which  had  been  religious 

3  Saint-Simon,  Catéchisme  des  Industriels ,  1er  Cahier  (Paris, 
1823). 


209 


at  first,  became  economic,  or,  rather,  the  religious  causes, 
which  had  once  been  dominant  in  anti-Judaism,  were 
subordinated  to  economic  and  social  causes. 

This  transformation,  which  corresponded  with  the 
change  in  the  role  pla}^ed  by  the  Jews,  was  not  the  only 
one.  Once  a  matter  of  sentiment,  the  hostility  towards 
the  Jews  became  one  of  reason.  The  Christians  of  yes¬ 
terday  hated  the  deicides  instinctively,  and  they  never 
attempted  to  justify  their  animosity:  they  showed  it. 
The  antisémites  of  to-day  conceived  a  desire  to  explain 
their  hatred,  i.  e .,  they  wanted  to  dignify  it:  anti- 
Judaism  moulted  into  antisemitism.  How  was  this  anti¬ 
semitism  manifested  ?  It  had  no  other  way  of  expression 
but  through  the  printing  press.  Official  anti¬ 
semitism  was  dead  in  the  West,  or  it  was 
dying;  as  a  result  anti- Je  wish  legislation,  too,  was  dis¬ 
appearing;  there  remained  theoretical  antisemitism,  it 
was  an  opinion,  a  theory,  but  the  antimesites  had  a  very 
distinct  object  in  view.  Up  to  the  time  of  the  Revolu¬ 
tion  literary  anti- Judaism  sustained  legal  anti- Juda¬ 
ism,  since  the  Revolution  and  the  emancipation  of 
the  Jews,  literary  antisemitism  has  striven  to  restore 
legal  anti- Judaism  in  the  countries  where  it  no  longer 
exists.  It  has  not,  as  yet,  achieved  that,  and  we  have  to 
study  only  the  manifestations  of  the  antisemitism  of  the 
pen,  manifestations,  some  of  which  represent  the  opin¬ 
ion  of  the  many,  for,  if  literary  antisémites  have  sup¬ 
plied  reasons  to  the  unconscious  antisémites,  they  were 
produced  by  them  ;  they  attempted  to  explain  what  the 
flock  felt,  manifested,  and  if  they  have  at  times  as¬ 
cribed  strange  and  improbable  motives,  they  often  but 


210 


echoed  the  sentiments  of  their  inspirers.  What  were 
these  sentiments  ?  We  shall  see  if  we  examine  the  anti- 
semitic  literature,  and  at  the  same  time  we  shall  disen¬ 
tangle  the  manifold  causes  of  contemporary  antisemit¬ 
ism. 

Except  in  the  case  of  some  of  them,  it  is  impossible 
to  classify  the  antisemitic  works  under  too  narrow  cate¬ 
gories,  as  each  of  them  often  presented  manifold  tend¬ 
encies.  Still  they  each  have  a  dominant  idea,  in  accord¬ 
ance  wTith  which  their  classification  may  be  settled,  al¬ 
ways  remembering  that  a  work  approaching  a  definite 
type  does  not  belong  solely  and  exclusively  to  it.  We 
shall,  then,  subdivide  antisemitism  into  Christian,  So¬ 
cialist,  economic,  ethnological  and  national,  metaphy¬ 
sical,  revolutionary  and  anti-Christian  antisemitism. 

Christian  Socialist  antisemitism  was  generated  by  the 
permanency  of  religious  prejudices.  If  the  Jews  had  not 
changed  on  entering  into  society,  the  sentiments  felt 
toward  them  for  so  many  long  years  would  not  have 
disappeared  either.  The  Jews  owed  their  emancipation 
to  a  philosophical  movement  coinciding  with  an  eco¬ 
nomic  movement  and  not  to  the  abolition  of  secular 
prejudices  against  them.  Those  who  thought  the  Chris- 
tion  State  the  only  State  possible  looked  with  disfavor 
upon  the  intrusion  of  the  Jews,  and  anti-Talmudism 
was  the  first  manifestation  of  this  hostility.  The  Tal¬ 
mud  which  was  justly  considered  the  religious  strong¬ 
hold  of  the  Jews  was  assailed  and  a  host  of  polemists 
devoted  themselves  to  proving  how  much  the  teachings 
of  the  Talmud  were  opposed  to  the  teachings  of  the 
Gospel.  Against  the  book  they  resumed  all  the  com- 


211 


plaints  of  the  controversialists  of  yore,  those  enumerated 
by  the  Jewish  apostates  in  debates,  and  repeated  in  the 
thirteenth  century  by  Raymund  Martin,  those  raised  by 
Pfefferkorn  and  later  on  by  Eisenmenger.  Not  even  the 
method  or  the  make-up  was  changed;  the  same  moulds 
were  made  use  of;  in  writing  pamphlets  the  same  tra¬ 
ditions  were  followed  as  those  of  the  dominican  in¬ 
quisitors,  and  not  a  whit  more  of  critical  acumen  was 
put  to  use  in  the  study  of  the  Talmudic  “deep.”  Never¬ 
theless,  concerning  the  Jew,  his  dogmas,  his  race,  the 
Christian  antisémites  of  our  time  have  the  same  notions 
as  the  J ews  of  the  Middle  Ages  had.  The  J ew  preoccu¬ 
pies  and  haunts  them,  they  see  him  everywhere,  they  trace 
everything  back  to  him,  they  have  the  same  conception  of 
history  as  had  Bossuet.  For  the  bishop,  Juduea  was 
the  centre  of  the  world;  all  events,  disasters  and  joys, 
conquests  and  the  downfalls,  as  well  as  the  foundings 
of  empires  had  for  its  primary,  mysterious  and  ineffable 
cause  the  whims  of  a  God  faithful  to  the  Bene-Israel, 
and  this  people,  wanderer,  founder  of  kingdoms  and 
captive,  in  turn,  had  continually  directed  mankind 
toward  its  only  goal  :  the  coming  of  Christ.  Ben  Hadad 
and  Sennacherib,  Cyrus  and  Alexander,  seem  to  exist 
only  because  J udah  exists,  and  because  J udah  must  now 
be  exalted  and  then  humiliated,  until  the  hour  when  he 
will  enjoin  upon  the  world  the  law  which  must  come 
from  him.  But  what  Bossuet  had  conceived  for  the  pur¬ 
pose  of  unheard  of  glorification,  the  Christian  antisém¬ 
ites  renew  that  with  quite  opposite  ends  in  view.  For 
them  the  Jewish  race,  the  scourge  of  the  nations,  scat¬ 
tered  over  the  earth,  accounts  for  the  misfortunes  and 


212 


blessings  of  the  alien  nations  in  whose  midst  it  had 
settled,  and  the  history  of  the  Hebrews  once  more  be¬ 
comes  the  history  of  monarchies  and  republics. 
Scourged  or  tolerated,  banished  or  admitted,  they,  by 
the  very  fact  of  these  political  vicissitudes,  account  for 
the  glory  of  the  states  or  even  their  decadence.  To  tell 
the  story  of  Israel,  is  to  tell  the  story  of  France,  or  Ger¬ 
many,  or  Spain.  This  is  what  the  Christian  antisémites 
see,  and  their  antisemitism  is  thus  purely  theological,  it 
is  the  antisemitism  of  the  Fathers,  that  of  Chrysostom, 
Saint  Augustin,  Saint  Jerome.  Before  the  birth  of 
Jesus,  the  Jewish  people  was  the  chosen  people,  the 
beloved  son  of  God;  since  the  time  it  had  disowned  the 
Saviour,  since  it  had  become  a  deicide,  it  had  become 
the  fallen  people  par  excellence ,  and  having  before 
brought  the  world’s  salvation,  it  now  causes  its  ruin. 

In  certain  works,  as,  e.  g.,  in  the  little  known  book  by 
Gougenot  des  Mousseaux,  The  Jew ,  Judaism  and  the 
Judaization  of  the  Christian  Nations /  this  conception 
is  very  clearly  set  forth.  To  Gougenot  the  Jews  are 
“for  ever  the  elect  nation,  the  noblest  and  most  august 
of  nations,  the  nation  issued  from  the  blood  of  Abraham, 
to  which  we  owe  the  mother  of  God.”  At  the  same  time 
the  Jews  are  the  most  perverse  and  unsociable  of  beings. 
How  does  he  reconcile  these  contradictions?  By  oppos¬ 
ing  the  Mosaic  Jew  to  the  Talmudist,  the  Bible  to  the 
Talmud.  This  is  the  way  in  which  most  of  the  Chris¬ 
tian  antisémites  proceed.  “Judaism  and  not  Mosaism 
stands  in  the  way  of  a  radical  reformation  of  the  Jews,” 

1  Gougenot  des  Mousseaux,  Le  Juif ,  le  Judaïsme  et  la  Judai- 
sation  des  peuples  chrétiens  (Paris,  1869). 


213 


says  the  abbot  Chiarini  in  a  memoir  composed  as  “a 
guide  to  reformers  of  the  Jews.”2 

Whatever  their  affinities  and  kinship  with  the  anti- 
Jews  of  the  Middle  Ages,  the  anti-Talmudists,  at  all 
events,  take  a  little  different  point  of  view.  Formerly, 
the  blasphemies  against  the  Christian  religion  were 
chiefly  sought  in  the  Talmud,  or  arguments  in  support 
of  the  divinity  of  Jesus  Christ  were  sought  there;  here¬ 
after  this  book’s  enemies  hunt  it  especially  as  an  anti¬ 
social,  pernicious  and  destructive  work.  The  Talmud, 
according  to  them,  makes  the  Jew  an  enemy  of  all  na¬ 
tions,  but  if  some  of  them,  like  des  Mousseaux  and 
Chiarini  are  guided,  like  the  theologians  of  yore,  above 
all  by  the  desire  to  bring  Israel  back  to  the  bosom  of 
the  church,* 1  others,  like  Doctor  Rohling,2  are  rather  in¬ 
clined  to  suppress  him  and  they  declare  him  forever  in¬ 
capable  to  be  of  any  good.  Quite  the  contrary;  since, 
they  say,  not  only  are  his  teachings  incompatible  with 
the  principles  of  Christian  governments,  but  because 
he  even  seeks  to  ruin  these  governments  in  order  to  draw 
profit  therefrom. 

It  is  easy  to  understand  that  after  the  upsettings 
caused  by  the  French  Revolution,  the  conservatives  felt 

2  Chiarini,  Théorie  du  Judaïsme  (Paris,  1830). 

1  The  anxiety  for  the  future  role  of  the  Jews  is  expressed  in 
a  striking  book  by  Leon  Bloy,  Le  Salut  par  les  Juifs  (Paris, 
1892).  In  the  volume  of  documents  and  notes  written  as  a 
sequel  to  Dom  Deschamps’  work  on  Secret  Societies,  Claudio  Jan 
net  expresses  the  opinion  that  the  Jews  are  undoubtedly  destined 
to  lead  the  world  back  to  God.  This  is  exactly  the  ancient  theo¬ 
logical  belief. 

2  Eng.  translation.  A.  Rohling,  Le  Juif  selon  le  Talmud 
(Paris,  1888).  Translated  from  the  German. 


214 


called  upon  to  hold  the  Jews  responsible  for  the  destruc¬ 
tion  of  the  ancient  regime.  When  they  cast  a  glance 
around  them  after  the  storm  had  passed  away,  one  of 
the  things  that  must  have  given  them  the  greatest  sur¬ 
prise,  was  surely  the  position  of  the  Jew.  But  yesterday 
the  Jew  was  nothing,  he  had  no  right,  no  power,  and  now 
he  was  shining  in  the  front  rank;  not  only  was  he  rich, 
but  he  could  even  be  doctor  and  govern  the  land,  as  he 
paid  his  tax.  Him  particularly  did  the  social  change 
favor.  In  the  eyes  of  a  representative  of  the  past,  of 
tradition,  it  looked  as  if  a  throne  had  been  overthrown 
and  European  wars  let  loose  solely  in  order  that  the  J ew 
might  acquire  the  citizen’s  rank,  and  the  declaration  of 
the  Bights  of  Man  seemed  to  have  been  but  a  declaration 
of  the  rights  of  the  Jew.  Accordingly,  the  Christian 
antisémites  did  not  stop  at  being  incensed  at  the  Jews’ 
speculations  over  national  property  or  the  military  sup¬ 
ply,1  but  applied  to  them  the  old  juridical  saying: 
fecisti  qui  prodes  (“thou  hast  done  it  who  profittest 
thereby.”)  If  the  Jew  indeed  had  profited  by  the  Bevolu- 
tion  in  this  respect,  if  he  had  derived  from  it  so  great 
a  benefit,  it  means  that  he  had  prepared  them,  or  rather, 
to  say,  he  had  helped  along  with  all  his  forces. 

Nevertheless  it  was  necessary  to  explain  how  this 
despised  and  hated  Jew,  considered  a  thing,  had  obtained 
the  power  of  accomplishing  such  deeds,  how  he  had  pre¬ 
pared  so  formidable  a  might.  Here  comes  in  a  theory, 
or  rather  a  philosophy  of  history  familiar  to  the  Cath- 

1 1  do  not  mean  to  say  that  the  Jews  were  the  only  ones  to 
speculate  in  this  way  ;  on  the  contrary,  they  were  in  the  insignif¬ 
icant  minority  among  those  who  did  the  speculation. 


215 


olic  polemists.  According  to  these  historians,  the 
French  Revolution  whose  counter  blow  has  been  univer¬ 
sal,  and  which  has  transformed  the  institutions  of 
Western  Europe,  was  but  the  capping  of  a  secular  con¬ 
spiracy.  Those  who  attribute  it  to  the  philosophical 
movement  of  the  eighteenth  century,  to  the  excesses  of 
monarchical  governments,  to  a  fatal  economic  change, 
to  the  decrepitude  of  a  class,  the  enfeeblement  of  a  form 
of  capital,  to  the  inevitable  evolution  of  the  ideas  of  au¬ 
thority  and  State,  to  the  enlargement  of  the  idea  of  an 
individual — all  those  are  grievously  in  error,  according 
to  the  historians  I  am  speaking  about.  They  are  blind 
people  who  do  not  see  the  truth  :  the  Revolution  was  the 
work  of  one  or  several  sects,  whose  establishment  goes 
back  to  great  antiquity,  sects  brought  out  by  the  same 
desire  and  the  same  principle:  the  desire  for  domina¬ 
tion  and  the  principle  of  destruction.  These  sects  pro¬ 
ceeded  according  to  a  clearly  defined,  inexorably  fol¬ 
lowed  up  plan — toward  the  destruction  of  monarchy  and 
church;  through  their  countless  ramifications  they  cov¬ 
ered  Europe  with  a  string  of  close  meshes,  and,  with 
the  help  of  the  most  underhand,  abominable  means,  they 
succeeded  in  undermining  the  throne — the  only  up¬ 
holder  of  social  and  religious  order. 

The  Genesis  of  this  conception  of  history  is  easy  to 
find.  It  took  its  origin  under  the  Terror  itself.  The 
part  taken  by  the  Masonic  lodges,  by  the  Illumines,  the 
Red-Crosses,  the  Martinists,  etc.,  in  the  Revolution,  had 
vividly  struck  certain  minds  which  were  carried  away 
to  exaggerate  the  influence  and  role  of  these  societies. 
A  thing  which  particularly  astonished  these  superficial 


216 


observers,  was  the  international  character  of  the  Revo¬ 
lution  of  1789  and  the  simultaneousness  of  the  move¬ 
ments  it  called  forth.  They  contrasted  its  general  ef¬ 
fect  with  the  local  effect  of  the  previous  Revolutions, 
which  had  agitated,  as,  e.  g.,  in  England,  only  the  coun¬ 
tries  where  they  took  place,  and,  in  order  to  account 
for  this  difference  they  attributed  the  work  of  centuries 
to  a  European  association  with  representatives  in  the 
midst  of  all  nations,  rather  than  to  admit  that  the  same 
stage  of  civilization  and  similar  intellectual,  social, 
moral  and  economic  causes,  could  have  simultaneously 
produced  the  same  effects.  The  very  members  of  these 
lodges,  of  these  societies,  helped  in  spreading  this  be¬ 
lief.* 1  They,  too,  exaggerated  their  importance,  they  not 
only  asserted  to  have  worked,  during  the  eighteenth  cen¬ 
tury,  for  the  changes  then  in  the  process  of  preparation 
— which  was  true — but  they  even  claimed  to  have  been 
their  distant  initiators.  This,  however,  is  not  the  place 
to  debate  this  question;  suffice  it  to  have  stated  the  ex¬ 
istence  of  these  theories  :  we  are  going  to  show  how  they 
came  to  the  assistance  of  the  Christian  antisémites. 

The  first  writers  to  set  forth  these  ideas  confined 
themselves  to  stating  the  existence  of  “a  peculiar  nation 
which  was  born  and  had  grown  in  darkness,  amidst  all 
civilized  nations,  for  the  purpose  of  subjecting  all  of 
them  to  its  rule,”1  as,  e.  g.,  the  cavalier  de  Malet,  brother 


1  Louis  Blanc,  Histoire  de  la  Revolution  Française,  vol.  II, 
p.  74. 

1  Recherches  historiques  et  politiques  qui  prouvent  l'existence 
d'une  secte  révolutionnaire,  son  antique  origine,  son  organisa¬ 
tion,  ses  moyens  ainsi  que  son  but ;  et  dévoilent  entièrement 


217 


of  the  conspiring  general,  wanted  to  prove  in  a  book,  lit¬ 
tle-known  and  very  poor  at  that.  Men  like  P.  Barrnel, 
in  his  Memoirs  on  Jacobinism J  like  Eckert  in  his  works 
on  Free  Masonry,3  like  Dom  Deschamps,4  like  Claudio 
Jannet,  like  Crétineau  Joly,5 6  have  developed  and  sys¬ 
tematized  this  theory,  they  have  even  endeavored  to 
prove  its  reality  and  though  they  did  not  attain  their 
aim,  they  have  at  least  gathered  all  the  elements  neces¬ 
sary  to  undertake  so  curious  a  history  as  that  of  secret 
societies.  In  all  their  works,  they  were  led  to  examine 
what  had  been  the  position  of  the  Jews  in  these  groups 
and  sects,  and,  struck  by  the  analogies  presented  by  the 
mystagogic  rites  of  Masonry  as  compared  with  certain 
Judaic  and  Kabbalistic  traditions *,1  misled  by  the  Hc- 

Vunique  cause  de  la  Revolution  Française,  par  le  Chevalier  de 

Malet.  Paris,  Gide  fils,  libraire,  1817. 

3  Barruel,  Mémoires  sur  le  Jacobinisme  (1797-1813).  Father 
Barruel  was  the  first  to  expound  these  ideas,  and  those  who 
followed  him  have,  properly  speaking,  only  imitated  or  continued 
his  work. 

3  Eckert,  La  Franc-Maconnerie  dans  sa  veritable  signification 
(Liege,  1854). —  La  Franc-Maconnerie  en  ellememe  (Liege, 
1859). 

4  Dom  Deschamps,  Les  Sociétés  Secretes  et  la  Société,  with  an 

introduction,  notes  and  documents  by  Claudio  Jannet.  Paris, 
1883. 

6  Cretineau  Jolv,  L'Englisc  romaine  avant  la  Révolution.  Paris 
1863. 

1  On  the  Hebrew  traditions  in  Free-Masonry,  and  on  the  points 
of  similarity  between  the  Free-Masons  and  the  ancient  Essenians, 
cf.  Clavel,  Histoire  pittoresque  de  la  Franc-Maconnerie  (Paris, 
1843)  ;  Kauffmann  et  Cherpin,  Histoire  philosophique  de  la 
Franc-Maconnerie  (Lyons,  1856)  and  an  article  by  Moise 
Schwab  on  the  Jews  and  the  Free-Masons,  published  in  the  An¬ 
nuaire  des  Archives  Israelites  pour  Van  5620  (1889-1890). 
Consult  also  the  various  works  of  J.  M.  Ragou  on  Free-Masonry 
(Paris,  Dentu). 


218 


brew  pomp  which  characterizes  the  initiation  in  these 
lodges,  they  arrived  at  the  conclusion  that  the  Jews  had 
always  been  the  inspirers,  guides  and  masters  of  Free- 
Masonry,  nay,  more  than  that,  they  had  been  its  found¬ 
ers,  and  that  they,  with  its  aid,  persistently  aimed  at 
the  destruction  of  the  church,  from  the  very  time  of  its 
foundation. 

They  went  further  in  this  path,  they  wanted  to  prove 
that  the  Jews  had  preserved  their  national  constitution, 
that  they  were  still  ruled  by  princes,  the  Nassi ,  who  led 
them  to  the  conquest  of  the  world,  and  that  these  enemies 
of  mankind  possessed  a  formidable  organization  and 
tactics.  Gougenot  des  Mousseaux,2  Rupert,3  de  Saint- 
André,4  the  abbot  Chabeauty,5  have  supported  these  as¬ 
sertions.  As  for  Edouard  Drumont,  the  whole  pseudo- 
historic  portion  of  his  books,  when  not  borrowed  from 
father  Loriquet,  is  nothing  but  a  clumsy  and  uncritical 
plagiarism  of  Barruel,  Gougenot,  of  Dom  Deschamps 
and  Crétineau  Joly.* 1 

Whatever  the  case  may  be,  with  Drumont,  as  with 
pastor  Stoecker,  Christian  antisemitism  transforms  or 

*  Gougenot  des  Mousseaux,  loc.  cit. 

8  Rupert,  L'Eglise  et  la  Synagogue  (Paris,  1859). 

*  De  Saint-Andre,  Francs  Macons  et  Juifs  (Paris,  1880). 

8  A  Chabeauty,  Les  Juifs  nos  Maitres  (Paris,  1883). 

1  It  must  be  noted  that  in  his  France  Juive  (I  mean  in  its  first 
chapters)  Drumont  does  not  quote  Gougenot  des  Mousseau  or 

Barruel  even  once  ;  he  quotes,  in  passing,  Dom  Deschamps  three 
times  and  Cretineau  de  Joly’s  Vendee  Militaire  once,  and  yet  he 

laid  these  writers  under  heavy  contribution.  Unless  his  “his¬ 

torical  documents”  had  been  furnished  him  by  the  disciples  of 
those  I  have  just  mentioned — that  is  quite  possible.  Let  it  be 

understood  here,  that  this  refers  to  Drumont  as  historian  and 
not  as  polemist. 


219 


rather  it  borrows  new  weapons  from  several  sociologists. 
TThongh  Drumont  fights  the  Jew^s  anti-clericalism, 
though  Stoecker,  in  his  anxiety  to  win  the  name  of  a 
second  Luther,  rises  against  the  J ewish  religion  as 
destructive  of  the  Christian  State,  other  preoccupations 
engage  them;  they  attack  Jewish  wealth  and  attribute 
to  Jews  the  economic  transformation  which  is  the  work 
of  the  19th  century.  They  still  persecute  in  the  J ew,.the 
enemy  of  Jesus,  the  murderer  of  a  God,  but  they  aim 
particularly  at  the  financier,  and  therein  they  join  hands 
with  those  who  preach  economic  antisemitism. 

This  antisemitism  has  manifested  itself  since  the  be¬ 
ginning  of  Jewish  financiering  and  industrialism.  If  we 
find  only  traces  of  it  in  Fourier* 1  and  Proudhon,  who 
confined  themselves  to  stating  only  the  role  of  the  Jew 
as  middle-man,  stock-jobber  and  non-producer,1 
it  gave  life  to  men  like  Toussenel2  and  Capefigue;3 * * * * 8  it 
inspired  such  books  as  The  Jews  Kings  of  the  Epoch 
and  the  History  of  Great  Financial  Operations ;  and 
later  on,  in  Germany,  the  pamphlets  of  Otto  Glagau 


1  Fourier,  Le  Nouveau  Monde  industriel  et  sociétaire  (Paris, 
librairie  sociétaire,  1848). 

1  In  Karl  Marx  ( Annales  franco-allemandes,  1844,  p.  211) 

and  in  Lassalle,  the  same  estimates  of  the  parasite  Jew  may  be 

found  as  in  Fourier  and  Proudhon. 

2 Toussenel,  Les  Juifs  rois  de  V Epoque  (Paris,  1847).  Tous¬ 
senel  followed  up  this  book  with  a  violent  campaign  in  the  news¬ 

paper,  La  Démocratie  pacifique.  However,  the  antisemitic 

movement  v’as  quite  violent,  under  the  July  monarchy,  and  nu¬ 

merous  pamphlets  were  published  against  the  Jewish  financiers. 

8  Capefigue,  Histoire  des  grandes  operations  financières  (Paris, 
1855). 


220 


against  the  Jewish  bankers  and  brokers.4  However,  I 
have  already  pointed  ont  the  origin  of  this  antisemitism, 
how,  on  the  one  hand,  the  landed  capitalists  held  the 
Jew  accountable  for  the  predominance  of  industrial  and 
financial  capitalism,  so  hateful  to  them,  how, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  bourgeoisie,  stocked  with 
privileges,  turned  against  the  Jew,  its  erstwhile  ally, 
henceforth  its  competitor  and  a  foreign  competitor  at 
that  ;  for  to  his  position  as  a  non-assimilated  stranger  the 
Jew  owes  the  excessive  animosity  shown  him,  and  thus 
economic  antisemitism  is  bound  up  with  ethnologic 
and  national  antisemitism. 

This  last  form  of  antisemitism  is  modern,  it  was  born 
in  Germany,  and  from  the  Germans  the  French  antisém¬ 
ites  have  derived  their  theory. 

This  doctrine  of  races,  which  Kenan  advocated  in 
France* 1  was  wrought  out  in  Germany  under  the  influ¬ 
ence  of  the  Hegelian  doctrines.  It  gained  the  ascend¬ 
ancy  in  1840  and  particularly  in  1848,  not  only  because 
German  policy  pressed  it  into  service,  but  because  it  was 
in  accord  with  the  nationalist  and  patriotic  movement 
that  produced  nations,  and  with  that  striving  for  unity 
which  characterized  all  European  nations. 

The  state,  so  they  said,  must  be  national;  the  nation 


4  Otto  Glagau,  Der  Boersen  und  Grander  g  esclnoindel  in  Ber¬ 
lin ,  (Leipzig,  1870).  Les  besoins  de  l’Empire  et  le  nouveau 
KulturJcampf  (Osnabrück,  1879). 

1  During  the  last  years  of  his  life  Renan  had  given  up  his 
theory  of  races,  their  inequality  and  their  mutual  superiority  or 
inferiority.  These  theories  will  be  found  set  forth  quite  clearly 
and  lucidly  in  Gobineau’s  in  many  ways  remarkable  book,  L’in- 
egalite  des  races  (Paris,  Firmin  Didot,  1884). 


221 


must  be  one,  and  must  include  all  the  individuals  speak¬ 
ing  the  national  language  and  belonging  to  the  same 
race.  More  than  that,  it  is  of  importance  that  this  na¬ 
tional  State  reduce  all  the  heterogeneous  elements,  i.  e., 
the  foreigners.  For  the  Jew,  not  being  an  Aryan,  has 
not  the  same  moral,  social  and  intellectual  conceptions 
as  the  Aryan;  he  is  irreducible,  and  therefore  he  must 
be  eliminated,  or  else  he  will  ruin  the  nations  that  have 
received  him,  and  some  among  the  nationalist  and  ethno¬ 
logic  antisémites  assert  that  the  work  has  already  been 
accomplished. 

These  notions,  resumed  since  then  by  von  Treitschke1 
and  Adolph  Wagner  in  Germay,  by  Schoenerer  in  Aus¬ 
tria,  Pattai  in  Hungary  and,  at  a  much  later  date,  by 
Drumont  in  France2,  were  reduced,  for  the  first  time, 
to  a  system  by  W.  Marr,  in  a  pamphlet  which  had  a  cer¬ 
tain  echo  in  France:  The  Victory  of  Judaism  over  Ger¬ 
manism.3 * * * * 8  In  it  Marr  declared  Germany  the  prey  of  a 
conquering  race,  the  Jews,  a  race  possessing  everything 

1 H.  von  Treitschke,  Bin  Wort  ueber  unser  Judenthum  (A 
Word  about  Our  Jews).  Berlin,  1888. 

2  Drumont  is  the  type  of  the  assimilator  antisémite  who  has 

flourished  in  France  these  last  years,  and  who  has  overrun  Ger¬ 
many.  A  talented  polemist,  vigorous  journalist  and  sprightly 
satirist,  Drumont  is  a  historian  of  poor  documentary  evidence, 
a  mediocre  sociologist  and  especially  philosopher,  and  can  under 

no  circumstances  be  compared  with  men  of  H.  von  Treitschke’s, 

Adolph  Wagner’s  and  Eugen  Duhring’s  standing.  Yet,  in  the 

development  of  antisemitism  in  France  and  Germany  even  he 
has  played  a  considerable  role,  and  he  has  exercised  a  great  in¬ 

fluence  as  a  propagandist. 

8  W.  Marr,  Der  Sieg  des  Judenthums  ueber  das  Germvanthum 
(Berne,  1879).  In  the  Journal  des  Debats  of  Nov.  5,  1879, 
Bourdeau  devoted  an  essay  to  this  pamphlet. 


222 


and  wanting  to  judaize  Germany,  like  France,  however, 
and  he  concluded  by  saying  that  Germany  was  lost. 
To  his  ethnologic  antisemitism  he  even  admixed  the  met¬ 
aphysical  antisemitism  which,  if  I  may  say  so,  Schopen¬ 
hauer  had  professed,4  the  antisemitism  consisting  in 
combatting  the  optimism  of  the  Jewish  religion,  an  opti¬ 
mism  which  Schopenhauer  found  low  and  degrading, 
and  with  which  he  contrasted  Greek  and  Hindoo  relig¬ 
ious  conceptions. 

But  Schopenhauer  and  Marr  are  not  the  only  repre¬ 
sentatives  of  philosophical  antisemitism.  The  whole  of 
German  metaphysics  combatted  the  J ewish  spirit ,  which 
it  considered  essentially  different  from  the  Germanic 
spirit ,  and  which  for  it  stood  for  the  past  as  contrasted 
with  the  present.  While  the  Spirit  is  realized  in  the 
world’s  history,  while  it  advances,  the  Jews  remain  at  a 
lower  stage.  Such  is  the  Hegelian  thought,  that  of 
Hegel  and  also  of  his  disciples  of  the  extreme  left — 
Feuerbach,  Arnold  Buge  and  Bruno  Bauer.* 1  Max  Stir- 

4  “A  God  like  that  Jehovah,”  says  Schopenhauer,  “who,  as 
animi  causa ,  for  its  own  pleasure  and  from  the  joy  of  heart 
produces  this  world  of  misery  and  lamentations,  and  who  even 
glories  in  it  and  applauds  himself  with  his 
— this  is  too  much.  Let  us  then,  at  this  point,  consider  the 
religion  of  the  Jews  as  the  last  among  the  religious  doctrines 
of  the  civilized  nations,  and  this  will  be  in  perfect  accord  with 
the  fact  that  it  is  the  only  one  that  has  absolutely  not  a  trace 
of  immortality.”  (Parer ga  und  Paralipomena ,  v.  II,  ch.  XII, 
p.  312,  Leipzig  1874). 

1  We  shall  return  to  this  question  in  our  Economic  History  of 
the  Jews,  when  speaking  of  the  role  of  the  Jews  in  Germany  in 
the  nineteenth  century. — Cf.  Hegel,  Philosophie  des  Rechts ; 
Arnold  Ruge,  Ztuei  Jahre  in  Paris ;  Bruno  Bauer,  Dit  Juden- 
frage ;  L.  Feuerbach,  Das  Wesen  des  Christenthums, 


223 


ner2  developed  these  ideas  with  much  precision.  To 
his  mind,  universal  history  has  until  now  passed  through 
two  ages:  the  first,  represented  by  antiquity,  during 
which  we  had  to  work  out  and  eliminate  “the  negro  stage 
of  the  soul  the  second,  that  of  Mongolism ,  represented 
by  the  Christian  period.  During  the  first  age  man  de¬ 
pended  upon  things,  during  the  second  he  is  swayed  by 
ideas,  waiting  until  he  can  dominate  them  and  free  him¬ 
self.  But  the  Jews,  these  precociously  wise  children  of 
antiquity,  have  not  passed  out  of  this  negro  stage  of  the 
soul.  In  spite  of  all  their  sagacity  and  their  intelligence, 
which,  with  little  effort,  masters  things  and  makes  them 
subserve  man,  they  cannot  discover  the  spirit  which  con¬ 
sists  in  holding  things  as  not  having  happened.  In 
Dlihring  we  find  another  more  ethical  than  metaphysical 
form  of  philosophical  antisemtism.  In  several  treatises, 
pamphlets  and  books,* 1  Dlihring  assails  the  Semitic  spirit 
and  the  Semitic  conception  of  the  divine  and  of  ethics, 
which  he  contrasts  with  the  conception  of  the  Northern 
peoples.  Pushing  the  deductions  from  his  premises  to 
their  logical  end  and  still  following  up  Bruno  Bauer’s 
doctrine,  he  assails  Christianity  which  is  the  last  mani¬ 
festation  of  the  Semitic  spirit:  “Christianity,”  says  he, 
“has  above  all  no  practical  morality  such  as  is  not  capa¬ 
ble  of  ambiguous  interpretation  and  thus  might  be  avail¬ 
able  and  sane.  The  nations  will,  therefore,  not  be  done 


2  Max  Stirner,  Der  Einzige  und  sein  Eigenthum.  Leipzig, 
1882,  pp.  22,  25,  31,  69. 

1  Particularly  in  The  Parties  and  the  Jewish  Question.  Die 

Judenfrage  als  Frage  der  Racenschaedlichkeit. 


224 


with  the  Semitic  spirit  until  they  have  expelled  from 
their  spirit  this  present  second  aspect  of  Hebraism.” 

After  Dühring,  Nietzsche,1  in  his  turn,  combatted  Jew¬ 
ish  and  Christian  ethics,  which,  according  to  him,  are 
the  ethics  of  slaves  as  contrasted  with  the  ethics  of  mas¬ 
ters.  Through  the  prophets  and  Jesus,  the  Jews  and  the 
Christians  have  set  up  low  and  noxious  conceptions 
which  consist  in  the  deification  of  the  weak,  the  humble, 
the  wretched,  and  sacrificing  to  it  the  strong,  the  proud, 
the  mighty. 

Several  revolutionary  atheists,  Gustave  Tridon2  and 
Regnard3  among  them,  have  espoused,  in  France,  this 
Christian  antisemitism  which,  in  its  final  analysis,  is 
reduced  to  the  ethnologic  antisemitism,  just  like  as  is  the 
strictly  metaphysical  antisemitism. 

The  different  varieties  of  antisemitism  may,  then,  be 
reduced  to  three  :  Christian  antisemitism,  economic 
antisemitism,  and  ethnologic  antisemitism.  In  our  ex¬ 
amination  just  made  we  have  pointed  out  that  the  griev¬ 
ances  of  the  antisémites  were  religious  grievances,  social 
grievances,  ethnologic  grievances,  national  grievances, 
intellectual  and  moral  grievances.  To  the  antisémite  the 
Jew  is  an  individual  of  a  foreign  race,  incapable  of 
adapting  himself,  hostile  to  Christian  civilization  and 
religion;  immoral,  antisocial,  of  an  intellectuality  dif¬ 
ferent  from  the  Aryan  intellectuality,  and,  to  cap  it 
all,  a  depredator  and  wrongdoer. 

1  Frierich  Nietzche,  Human ,  all  too  Human  (1879),  Beyond 
Good  and  Evil ;  The  Genealogy  of  Morality  (1887). 

2  Gustave  Tridon,  Du  Molochisme  juif.  (Bruxelles,  1884), 

8  A,  Regnard,  Aryens  et  Semites .  (Paris,  1890), 


225 


We  shall  now  examine  these  grievances  in  regular 
order.  We  shall  see  whether  they  are  well-founded 
i.  e.j  whether  the  real  causes  of  contemporary  antisemi¬ 
tism  correspond  to  them,  or  they  are  but  prejudices.  Let 
us  first  turn  to  the  study  of  the  ethnologic  grievance. 


CHAPTER  X. 

THE  RACE. 

The  Ethnologic  Grievance. — The  Inequality  of  Races. — 
Semites  and  Aryans. — Aryan  Superiority. — The 
Struggle  of  Semites  and  Aryans. — The  Semitic 
Share  in  the  so-called  Aryan  Civilizations. — The 
Semitic  Colonization. — The  First  Years  of  the 
Christian  Era  and  the  Judeo-Christians. — The 
Jewish  Elements  in  the  European  Nations. — The 
Idea  of  Race  Among  the  Jews. — Jewish  Superior¬ 
ity. — The  Origins  of  the  Jewish  Race. — Foreign 
Elements  in  the  Jewish  Race. — Jewish  Prosely- 
tism. — In  Pagan  Antiquity. — After  the  Christian 
Era. — The  Uralo-Altaic  Infiltrations  in  the  Jewish 
Race. — The  Khazars  and  the  Peoples  of  the  Cau¬ 
casus. — Different  Varieties  of  Jews. — Dolichoceph- 
als  and  Brachycephals. — Ashkenazim  and  Sephar¬ 
dim. — The  Jews  of  China,  India  and  Abyssinia. — 
Modification  Through  Surroundings  and  Language. 
Jewish  Unity. — Nationality. 


226 


The  Jew  is  a  Semite,  he  belongs  to  a  strange,  noxious, 
disturbing  and  inferior  race — such  is  the  ethnologic 
grievance  of  the  antisémites.  What  does  it  rest  upon? 
It  rests  upon  an  anthropological  theory  which  had  given 
rise  or  at  least  justification  to  an  historical  theory:  the 
doctrine  of  the  inequality  of  races,  of  which  we  must 
speak  first  of  all. 

Since  the  eighteenth  century  attempts  have  been  made 
to  classify  men  and  distribute  them  under  well-defined, 
distinct  and  separate  categories.  As  a  basis  for  it  quite 
different  indices  were  taken  :  the  section  of  the  hair — 
oval  section  for  negroes  with  woolly  hair,  or  round  sec¬ 
tion;1  the  shape  of  the  skull — broad  or  elongated;2  the 
color  of  the  skin.  This  last  classification  has  prevailed  : 
nowadays  three  races  of  mankind — the  negro,  the  yellow, 
and  the  white  race — are  distinguished.  Different  apti¬ 
tudes  are  ascribed  to  these  races,  and  they  are  arranged 
in  the  order  of  their  superiority  in  a  ladder  of  which  the 
negro  race  occupies  the  lowest  and  the  white  race  the 
highest  round.  Similarly,  in  order  to  account  still  better 
for  this  hierarchy  of  the  human  races,  the  religious  doc¬ 
trine  of  monogenism,  which  declares  that  mankind  has 
descended  from  a  single  couple, — is  rejected,  and  against 
it  is  set  up  polygenism  which  admits  of  the  simultaneous 
appearance  of  numerous  different  couples, — a  more  log¬ 
ical  and  rational  conception  and  more  in  keeping  with 
reality. 

Has  this  classification  any  serious  and  actual  bases? 
Does  the  belief  in  monogenism  or  in  polygenism  allow  of 

1  Ulotrichi  and  Leiotrichi. 

3  Brachycip'hals  and  Dolichocephals. 


227 


asserting  that  there  are  elect  and  reprobate  races?  Not 
by  any  means.  If  monogenism  is  accepted,  it  is  evident 
that  men,  as  descendants  of  one  common  pair,  possess  the 
same  qualities,  the  same  blood,  the  same  physical  and 
psychic  constitution.  If,  on  the  contrary,  polygenism, 
i.  e.,  the  initial  existence  of  an  indefinite  and  considera¬ 
ble  number  of  heterogeneous  bands  inhabiting  the  earth, 
is  accepted,  it  becomes  impossible  to  maintain  the  exist¬ 
ence  of  originally  superior  or  inferior  races,  for  the  first 
social  groupings  were  effected  through  the  amalgamation 
of  these  heterogeneous  bands  whose  respective  qualities 
and  virtues  we  should  not  be  able  to  determine,  and,  still 
less,  to  classify.  “All  nations,”  says  Gumplowicz,1  “the 
most  primitive  that  we  meet  with  at  the  first  dawn  of  his¬ 
toric  times,  will  be  for  us  the  products  of  a  process  of 
amalgamation  (already  ended  during  the  prehistoric 
times)  among  the  heterogeneous  ethnic  elements.”  Thus, 
if  the  point  of  view  of  the  identity  of  origin  is  taken,  the 
ethnologic  hierarchy  is  inadmissible,  and,  with  Alexander 
von  Humboldt,  it  may  be  asserted  that  “  there  are  no  eth¬ 
nic  stems  that  are  nobler  than  others.” 

Race  is,  however,  a  fiction.  No  human  group  exists 
that  can  boast  of  having  had  two  original  ancestors  and 
having  descended  from  them  without  any  adulteration 
of  the  primitive  stock  through  mixture  ;  human  races  are 
not  pure,  i.  e.,  strictly  speaking,  there  is  no  such  thing  as 
a  race.  “There  is  no  unity,”  says  Topinard  t1  the  races 
have  divided,  scattered,  blended,  intercrossed  in  all  de¬ 
grees  and  directions  since  thousands  of  centuries;  most 
of  them  gave  up  their  language  in  favor  of  that  of  their 

1 L.  Gumplowicz,  La  Lutte  des  races  (Paris,  1893). 


228 


conquerors,  then  gave  the  same  up  for  a  third,  if  not  a 
fourth  language;  the  principal  masses  have  disappeared 
and  now  we  find  ourselves  face  to  face  with  peoples  and 
not  races.”  The  anthropologic  classification  of  mankind 
has  consequently  no  value  whatever. 

It  is  true  that,  in  default  of  anthropologic  character¬ 
istics,  the  partisans  of  the  ethnologic  hierarchy,  fall  back 
upon  linguistic  characteristics.  As  languages  are  classi¬ 
fied  according  to  their  evolution  into  monosyllabic,  ag¬ 
glutinative,  inflectional  and  analytical — the  “election” 
or  “reprobation”  of  those  who  speak  them  has  been  estab¬ 
lished  on  the  basis  of  these  various  forms  of  language. 
This  claim  is  at  all  events  untenable,  for  the  Chinese, 
with  their  monosyllabic  language,  are  inferior  neither 
to  the  Yakuts  nor  the  Kamchatkans,  whose  speech  is  ag¬ 
glutinative,  nor  to  the  Zulus  who  speak  an  inflectional 
language  ;  and  it  would  be  easy  to  prove  that  the  J apan- 
ese  and  Magyars,  whose  language  is  agglutinative  are  in 
no  way  inferior  to  certain  so-called  Aryan  nations  speak¬ 
ing  an  inflectional  language.  Still,  we  know  that  the 
fact  of  speaking  the  same  language  does  not  imply  the 
identity  of  origin  ;  conquering  races  have  from  times 
immemorial  forced  their  language  upon  other  strange 
races,  though  these  latter  had  no  inborn  tastes  for  it  ;  the 
classification  of  languages  can,  consequently,  in  no  way 
determine  the  ethnic  classification  of  mankind. 

Nevertheless,  and  however  untenable  this  doctrine  of 
the  inequality  of  races,  whether  from  the  linguistic  or 

1  Dr.  P.  Topinard,  Anthropologie  (Paris,  Biblioth.  des  Sci¬ 
ences  contemporaines. — Reinwald  edit..  (There  is  an  English 
translation.) 


229 


from  the  anthropologic  point  of  view,  it  has  been  quite 
dominant  in  onr  times,  and  nations  have  chased  and  still 
chase  this  chimera  of  ethnologic  unity,  which  is  but  the 
heritage  of  an  ill-informed  past  and,  truth  to  tell,  a  form 
of  regress.  Antiquity  had  the  greatest  claims  to  purity 
of  blood,  and  at  present  the  race  idea  is  most  widespread 
and  most  deeply  rooted  among  the  African  negroes  and 
certain  savages.  This  is  simple.  The  first  collective  ties 
were  blood  ties;  the  first  social  unit,  the  family,  was 
founded  on  blood  ;  the  city  was  considered  as  the  family 
enlarged,  and  at  the  historical  dawn  of  every  city,  legend 
placed  an  ancestral  couple,  just  as  an  initial  couple  was 
placed  in  certain  religions,  at  the  early  stage  of  man¬ 
kind.1  When  new  human  elements  came  upon  these 
agglomerations,  it  was  necessary  to  perpetuate  this  belief 
in  the  original  identity,  and  this  was  attained  by  the  fic¬ 
tion  of  adoption,  and  in  these  remote  civilizations  only 
the  child  of  the  tribe  or  city,  or  the  adopted  one,  had 
a  place.  In  all  primitive  legislations,  the  foreigner  was 
an  enemy  against  whom  precaution  was  necessary,  a  dis¬ 
turber  who  perplexed  beliefs  and  ideas.  At  the  same 
time  collective  bodies  became  less  uniform  as  they  grew. 
If  an  interrupted  filiation  is  considered  the  exclusive 
mark  of  unity, — we  have  seen  that  even  in  the  prehistoric 
times  vast  hordes  had  been  formed  through  the  agglomer¬ 
ation  of  heterogeneous  bands  and  that  the  first  historic 
states  had,  in  their  turn  been  made  up  through  the  ag- 

1  The  tenth  chapter  of  Genesis  presents  one  of  the  most  per¬ 
fect  types  of  this  belief,  in  the  genealogy  of  the  descendants  of 
Noah’s  sons  ;  an  ancestor  is  placed  at  the  head  of  each  human 
group  of  each  nation. 


230 


glomeration  of  these  hordes,  who  could  no  longer  claim 
the  same  ancestor  for  each  of  its  members.  In  spite  of  all, 
this  idea  of  the  community  of  origin  has  survived  till  our 
days.  That  is  because  it  takes  its  origin  in  an  essential 
need:  the  need  of  homogeneity,  unity,  the  need  which 
impels  all  societies  to  reduce  their  dissimilar  ele¬ 
ments,  and  this  belief  in  the  purity  of  blood  is  but  an 
external  manifestation  of  the  need  of  unity,  it  is  a  way  of 
expressing  this  necessity,  a  neat,  simple  and  satisfactory 
way  for  the  unconscious  and  the  savage,  but  at  all  events 
insufficient  and  particularly  undemonstrable  for  him 
who  is  not  satisfied  with  the  appearance  of  things. 

All  the  same  the  theory  of  the  inequality  of  races  rests 
on  a  real  fact  ;  its  formula  ought  to  be  :  the  inequality  of 
nations,  for  there  is  every  evidence  that  the  destiny  of 
different  nations  has  not  been  similar,  but  this  does  not 
mean  that  the  inequality  of  these  nations  was  original. 
It  simply  means  that  certain  nations  were  placed  in  more 
favorable  geographical,  climatic  and  historical  conditions 
than  those  enjoyed  by  other  nations,  and  that,  conse¬ 
quently,  they  could  develop  more  happily,  more  harmo¬ 
niously  ;  but  not  that  they  had  better  dispositions  or  bet¬ 
ter-formed  brains.  The  proof  thereof  is  in  the  fact  that 
certain  nations  of  the  would-be  superior  white  race  have 
founded  civilizations  by  far  inferior  to  those  of  the  yel¬ 
low  or  even  the  negro  races.  There  are  not,  therefore, 
any  originally  superior  peoples  or  races,  but  there  are 
nations  which  “ under  certain  conditions  have  founded 
more  powerful  monarchies  and  more  lasting  civiliza¬ 
tions. 


1  Leon  Metchnikoff,  La  Civilisation  et  les  Grands  Fleuves. 


231 


Whatever  they  be,  true  or  false,  these  ethnologic  prin¬ 
ciples  which  concern  us,  have,  by  the  very  fact  of  their 
existence, — been  one  of  the  causes  of  antisemitism;  they 
have  supplied  a  scientific  appearance  to  a  phenom¬ 
enon  which  we  shall  later  recognize  as  national  and 
economic  and,  through  them,  the  grievances  of  the  anti- 
Semites  were  fortified  with  pseudo-historical  and  pseudo- 
anthropological  arguments.  Indeed,  not  only  was  the  ex¬ 
istence  admitted  of  three  races, — negro,  yellow  and  white, 
— ranged  in  hierarchic  order,  but  even  in  these  races  sub¬ 
divisions,  categories,  were  established.  At  first  it  was  as¬ 
serted  that  the  white  race  alone  and  some  families  of  the 
yellow  race  were  capable  of  founding  superior  civiliza¬ 
tions;  presently  this  white  race  was  divided  into  two 
branches:  the  Aryan  race  and  the  Semitic  race;  finally 
it  was  maintained  that  the  Aryan  must  be  considered  the 
most  perfect  race.  Even  in  our  days  the  Aryan  race  has 
been  subdivided  into  groups,  and  this  enabled  anthropolo¬ 
gists  and  chauvinistic  ethnologists  to  declare  either  that 
the  Celtic  or  the  Germanic  group  must  be  considered  as 
the  pure  wheat  of  this  Aryan  race,  already  superior  as  it 
was.  Modern  historians  place  at  the  basis  of  Oriental 
antiquity  this  problem  which,  though  insoluble,  they 
deem  paramount.  To  which  stock  do  the  ancient  nations 
belong  ?  Are  they  Aryans,  Turanians  or  Semites  ?  This 
is  the  question  put  at  the  outset  of  all  researches  on  the 
nations  of  the  Orient.  Thus,  consciously  or  uncon¬ 
sciously,  history  is  modeled  after  the  ethnic  tables  of 
Genesis — tables  also  met  with  among  the  Babylonians 
and  the  primitive  Greeks — which  accounted  in  a  rudi- 


(  Paris,  1889.) 


232 


mentary  way  for  the  diversity  of  human  groups,  by  the 
existence  of  sprouts  issued  from  single  parents,  each 
sprout  then  producing  a  nation.  Thus  it  is  the  Bible  again 
that  lends  assistance  to  the  antisémites,  for  in  ethnog¬ 
raphy  and  history  we  are  still  clinging  to  the  explana¬ 
tions  of  the  Genesis — Shem,  Ham  and  Japhet,  only 
replaced  by  the  Semite,  the  Turanian  and  the  Aryan, 
however  impossible  it  may  be  to  justify  these  divisions 
linguistically,  anthropologically  or  historically.1 

Without  stopping  to  discuss  whether  the  negro  races 
are  capable  of  civilization  or  not2  we  must  see  what  is 
understood  under  the  names  Aryans  and  Semites. 

Aryans  is  the  name  of  all  peoples  whose  language  is 
derived  from  Sanskrit,  a  language  spoken  by  a  human, 
group  called  arya.  Now,  this  group  “presents  no  scien¬ 
tifically  demonstrable  unity  except  from  the  exclusively 
linguistic  point  of  view.”3 * * * * 8  All  anthropologic  unity  is 
undemonstrable  :  the  cranial  measurements,  indices, 
numbers,  furnish  no  proof.  In  this  Aryan  chaos  are 
found  Semitic  types,  Mongolian  types,  all  types  and  all 
varieties  of  types,  from  the  one  which  is  capable  of  de- 

1  The  classification  is  pretty  nearly  of  a  piece  with  the  claim 
of  the  feudal  classes,  who  justified,  in  the  Middle  Ages,  their 
tyranny  by  pretending  to  be  Japhetites,  while  the  peasant  and 
the  serf  were  Hamites,  a  fact  which  made  legitimate  the  rela¬ 
tions  of  superior  and  inferior. 

2  We  know  that  that  wonderful  civilization  of  Ancient  Egypt 

was  in  great  part  the  work  of  negroes,  who  were  helped  by  the 

reds,  the  Semites,  Turanians  and  some  of  those  white  tribes,  in 

our  days  still  represented  by  the  African  Tuaregs,  who  have 

never  founded  any  society  or  anything  lasting.  There  still  exist 
in  Africa  imposing  ruins  which  testify  to  the  existence  of  a 

negro  civilization,  strongly  developed  at  one  historical  epoch. 

8  Leon  Metchnikoff,  loc.  cit. 


I 


—  233  — 

veloping  morally,  intellectually  and  socially,  up  to  the 
one  that  remains  in  everlasting  mediocrity.  There  may 
be  observed  dolichocephals  and  brachycephals,  men  with 
brown  skin,  others  with  yellowish  and  yet  others  with 
white  skin.  Still,  despite  the  fact  that  some  tribes  of 
Aryan  language  had  no  development  perceptibly  superior 
to  that  of  some  agglomerations  of  negroes,  it  is  not  a  whit 
less  energetically  asserted  that  the  Aryan  is  the  most 
beautiful  and  noblest  of  the  races,  that  it  is  the  product¬ 
ive  and  creative  race  par  excellence ,  that  to  it  we  are  in¬ 
debted  for  the  most  wonderful  metaphysics,  the  most 
magnificent  lyric,  religious  and  ethical  productions  and 
that  no  other  race  ever  was  or  is  susceptible  of  a  like  ex¬ 
pansion.  To  arrive  at  such  a  result,  an  abstraction  is 
naturally  made  from  the  indisputable  fact  that  all  his¬ 
torical  organisms  had  been  formed  of  the  most  dissimilar 
elements,  whose  respective  share  in  the  common  work  it 
is  impossible  to  determine. 

The  Aryan  race,  then,  is  superior,  and  it  has  proven 
its  superiority  by  resisting  the  rule  of  a  fraternal  and 
rival  race — the  Semitic.  This  latter  is  a  ferocious,  brutal 
race,  incapable  of  creative  power,  devoid  of  any  ideal, 
and  Universal  History  is  represented  as  the  history  of 
the  conflict  between  the  Aryan  and  the  Semitic  race,  a 
conflict  which  we  witness  even  at  present.  Each  anti- 
Semite  affords  proof  of  this  secular  conflict.  Even  the 
Trojan  War  becomes,  with  some,  the  struggle  between  the 
Aryan  and  the  Semite,  and  through  the  exigencies  of  the 
case,  Paris  becomes  a  Semitic  brigand  who  ravishes 
Aryan  beauties.  Later  on  the  Median  Wars  form  a  phase 
of  this  great  contest,  and  the  great  king  is  pictured  as  the 


234 


leader  of  the  Semitic  Orient  falling  upon  the  Ayyan  Oc¬ 
cident;  then  it  is  Carthage  disputing  with  Rome  over  the 
Empire  of  the  World;  then  Islam  advances  against 
Christendom,  and  all  through  it  is  pointed  with  pleasure 
that  the  Greek  has  defeated  the  Trojan  and  Artaxerxes, 
that  Rome  triumphed  over  Carthage,  and  Charles  Martel 
checked  Abder-Rahman.  Just  as  they  recognize  Semites 
in  the  Trojans,  the  apologists  of  the  Aryans  (on  the  other 
hand)  do  not  want  to  see  anything  but  Aryans  in  those 
heterogeneous  and  barbarous  hordes  that  besieged  the 
wealthy  Ilium  and  in  the  Medes  who  subjugated  Assyria 
and  of  whom  only  one  tribe — the  Arya-Zantha — was 
Aryan,  while  the  majority  was  Turanian,  no  doubt. 
They  want  to  prove  that  Summer  and  Accad,  the  educa¬ 
tors  of  the  Semites — wTere  Aryans,  and  some  have 
ascribed  this  noble  origin  even  to  ancient  Egypt.  They 
have  done  even  something  better  than  that  with  Semitic 
civilizations,  they  have  computed  the  good  and  the  evil, 
and  nowadays  it  is  an  article  of  antisemitic  faith,  that 
whatever  is  acceptable  or  perfect  in  Semitism  had  been 
borrowed  of  the  Aryans. 

The  Christian  antisémites  have  thus  reconciled  their 
faith  with  their  animosity,  and  not  stopping  short  even 
before  heresy,  they  have  admitted  that  the  prophets  and 
Jesus  were  Aryans,1  while  the  anti-Christian  antisémites 


1  This  theory,  which  has  the  immense  advantage  of  not  resting 
on  any  foundation,  sprang  up  in  Germany  and  passed  from  there 
into  France  and  Belgium.  De  Biez  and  Edmond  Picard  have  in 
turn  upheld  it,  but  they  did  not  bring  any  even  illusory  proof  in 
support  of  their  assertions.  (Cf.  Antisemiten — Spiegel,  pp.  132, 
s22.,  Danzig,  1892). 


235 


consider  the  Galilean  and  the  nabis  (prophets)  as  de¬ 
serving  condemnation  and  inferior  Semites. 

Does  what  we  know  of  the  history  of  ancient  and  mod¬ 
ern  nations  give  us  the  right  to  accept  as  genuine  this 
rivalry,  this  struggle,  this  instinctive  opposition  between 
the  Aryan  and  the  Semitic  race?  By  no  means,  since 
Semites  and  Aryans  have  intermingled  in  a  continuous 
way,  and  since  the  Semitic  share  in  all  so-called  Aryan 
civilizations  is  considerable.  Ten  centuries  before  the 
Christian  era  the  Phoenician  cities  of  the  Mediterranean 
had  sent  out  emigrants  to  the  islands,  and,  after  found¬ 
ing  cities  which  covered  the  Northern  coast  of  Africa, 
from  Hadrumete  and  Carthage  to  the  Canary  Islands, 
successively  colonized  Greece,  which  the  Aryan  invaders 
found  so  peopled  by  yellow  natives  and  Semitic  colonists 
that  Athens  was  an  entirely  Semitic  city.  The  case  was 
the  same  in  Italy,  Spain,  France,  where  the  Phoenician 
navigators,  e.  g.,  founded  Nimes  just  as  they  had  founded 
Thebes  in  Boeotia  and  came  to  Marseilles  just  as  they 
had  made  land  in  Africa.  These  diverse  elements  amal¬ 
gamated  later  on  and  were  brought  into  harmony 
through  the  effect  of  the  climate,  mental,  intellectual  and 
moral  surroundings,  but  they  did  not  remain  inactive. 
The  Semites  transformed  the  Hellenic  genius,  i.  e.,  by 
introducing  into  it  strange  elements,  they  gave  it  an  op¬ 
portunity  of  modifying  itself.  From  this  point  of  view, 
the  history  of  Hellenic  myths  is  curious  and  instructive, 
and  this  Semitic  contribution  may  be  grasped  by  com¬ 
paring  Hercules  to  Melkart,  or  Ashtoreth  to  Aphrodite. 
Likewise,  the  Phoenician  cups  and  vases,  exported  in 
great  numbers  by  the  merchants  of  Tyre  and  Sidon, 


236 


served  as  models  for  the  Greek  artists,  and  thus  enabled 
the  subtle  mind  of  the  Ionians  and  Dorians  to  interpret 
the  myths  represented  on  them,  and  the  Phoenician 
image-trade  helped  out  much  the  Greek  iconologic  myth¬ 
ology.1  Again,  the  Phoenicians  brought  to  the  Hellenes 
the  alphabet  borrowed  from  the  hieroglyphics  of  ancient 
Egypt;  they  taught  them  the  mining  industry  and  the 
working  of  metals,  just  as  Assyria’s  pupil,  Asia  Minor, 
made  them  familiar  with  sculpture,  and  we  still  possess 
monuments  testifying  to  this  influence. — e.  g the  lions 
of  the  Mycenæan  Acropolis  and  those  Hellenic  goddesses 
which  have  preserved  the  types  we  meet  with  on  the  Bab¬ 
ylonian  baked-clay  tablets.  With  their  marvelous  sense  of 
harmony  and  beauty,  with  their  science  of  order,  of  orches¬ 
tration,  as  it  were,  they  wrought  up  these  oriental  ideas, 
transformed  and  purified  them,  but,  for  all  that,  the 
Greek  people  was  an  amalgam  of  quite  different  Aryan, 
Turanian  and  Semitic,  even  perhaps  Hamitic,  races,  and 
it  owed  its  genius  to  causes  other  than  the  nobility  and 
purity  of  its  origin. 

Still  the  modern  antisémites  would  rigorously  admit 
the  importance  of  the  Semites  in  the  history  of  civiliza¬ 
tion,  but  would  make  a  classification  even  there.  There 
are,  they  say,  superior  and  inferior  Semites.  The  Jew 
is  the  latter  type,  of  the  Semites,  essentially  unproduct¬ 
ive,  from  whom  men  have  received  nothing  and  who  can 
give  nothing.  It  is  impossible  to  accept  this  assertion. 
It  is  true  that  the  Jewish  nation  has  never  displayed  any 

1  Cf.  Clermont-Ganneau,  L'Imagerie  phénicienne  et  la  Mytho¬ 
logie  iconologique  chez  les  Orées.  Paris,  1880  ;  and  Les  An¬ 
tiquités  orientales,  Paris,  1890. 


237 


great  aptitudes  for  the  plastic  arts,  but,  through  the  voice 
of  its  prophets,  it  has  accomplished  a  moral  work  by 
which  every  nation  has  been  benefited  ;  it  has  worked  out 
some  of  those  ethical  and  social  ideas  which  are  the  leaven 
of  humanity;  if  it  has  not  had  any  divine  sculptors  and 
painters,  it  has  had  wonderful  poets,  it  has,  above  all,  had 
moralists  who  had  worked  for  universal  brotherhood, 
prophetic  pamphleteers  who  made  living  and  immortal 
the  idea  of  justice,  and  Isaiah,  Jeremiah,  Ezekiel,  de¬ 
spite  their  violence,  fierceness  even,  have  made  heard  the 
voice  of  suffering  which  wants  not  only  to  be  protected 
against  execrable  force,  but  to  be  freed  from  it. 

However,  if  the  Phoenician  element  had  incorporated 
itself  with  the  Pelasgian,  Hellenic,  Latin,  Celtic  and 
Iberian  elements,  the  Jewish  element,  by  intermingling 
with  others,  has  also  contributed  to  the  formation  of 
those  agglomerations  which  later  on  united  to  form  the 
modern  nations.  The  Jew,  too,  came  to  sink  and  disap¬ 
pear  in  that  enormous  crucible  which  Asia  Minor  pre¬ 
sented,  and  where  the  most  diverse  nations  were  cast. 
Slowly  hellenized,  the  J ews  in  Alexandria  turned  the  city 
into  one  of  the  most  active  centres  of  Christian  propa¬ 
ganda.  They  were  among  the  first  to  convert;  they 
formed  the  nucleus  of  the  primitive  Church  in  Alexan¬ 
dria,  Antioch,  Rome,  and  after  the  disappearance  of  the 
Ebionites  they  were  absorbed  in  the  total  mass  of  Greek 
and  Roman  converts. 

Throughout  the  Middle  Ages  Jewish  blood  was  inter¬ 
mingling  with  Christian  blood.  Cases  of  wholesale  con¬ 
version  were  exceedingly  numerous,  and  it  would  make 
interesting  reading  to  recount  those  of  the  Jews  of 


238 


Braine,* 1  of  Tortosa,2  those  of  Clermont  converted  by  Avi- 
tus,  the  25,000  converted,  as  tradition  goes,  by  Vincent 
Ferrer, — all  of  whom  disappeared  in  the  midst  of  the 
nations  among  whom  they  lived.  If  the  Inquisition  hin¬ 
dered,  or  at  least  tried  to  hinder,  judaization,  it  favored 
the  absorption  of  the  Jews,  and  were  the  Christian  anti¬ 
sémites  logical  they  would  curse  Torquemada  and  his  suc¬ 
cessors,  who  helped  to  pollute  Aryan  purity  by  the  ad¬ 
junction  of  the  Jew.  The  number  of  Marranos  in  Spain 
was  enormous.  In  nearly  all  Spanish  families,  a  Jew 
or  a  Moor  is  found  at  some  point  of  their  genealogy  ;  “the 
noblest  houses  are  full  of  J ews,”  they  said,1  and  the  car¬ 
dinal  Mendoza  y  Bovadilla  wrote  in  the  sixteenth  century 
a  pamphlet  on  the  flaws  in  Spanish  lineages.2  It  was  the 
same  everywhere,  and  from  the  number  of  apostates  an¬ 
tagonizing  their  former  coreligionists  we  have  ascer¬ 
tained  that  the  Jews  were  accessible  to  Christian  seduc¬ 
tion. 

We  have  thus  made  answer  to  those  who  maintain  the 
purity  of  the  Aryan  race  ;  we  have  pointed  out  that  this 
race,  like  all  the  others,  was  a  product  of  countless  mix¬ 
tures.  Not  to  speak  of  the  prehistoric  times  we  have 
made  it  clear  that  the  Persian,  Macedonian  and  Roman 
conquests  made  worse  the  ethnologic  confusion  which  in- 


1  Saint-Prioux,  Histoire  de  Braine. 

2  The  Jews  of  Tortosa  converted  in  thousands  after  the  con¬ 
ference  opened  at  the  instigation  of  Jerome  de  Santa  Fe. 

1  Centinela  contra  Judios. 

2  Francisco  Mendoza  y  Bovadilla,  El  Tizon  de  la  Nobleza  Es- 
panola,  o  maculas  y  sambenitos  de  sus  Linajes  (Barcelona, 
1880;  Bibliotheca  de  obras  raras). — Cf.  also  Llorente,  Histoire 
de  rinquisition  (Paris,  1817). 


239 


creased  in  Europe  still  further  during  the  invasions. 
The  so-called  Indo-Germanic  races,  stock-full  of  allu¬ 
vions  even  before,  intermingled  with  Chudians,  Ugrians, 
Uralo-Altaians.  Those  among  the  Europeans  who  believe 
themselves  descended  in  line  direct  from  Aryan  ancestors 
do  not  keep  in  mind  those  so  diverse  lands  which  these 
ancestors  had  traversed  in  their  long  journeys,  nor  all  the 
tribes  which  they  had  swept  along  with  them,  nor  all 
those  which  they  found  settled  wherever  they  tarried, — 
tribes  of  unknown  races  and  of  uncertain  origin,  obscure 
and  unknown  tribes  whose  blood  is  still  running  in  the 
veins  of  those  who  boast  themselves  heirs  of  the  legend¬ 
ary  and  noble  Aryans,  as  the  blood  of  the  yellow  Dasyus 
and  black  Dravidians  flows  under  the  skin  of  the  white 
Arya-Hindoos. 

But  the  idea  of  Semitic  superiority  is  in  no  way  more 
justifiable  than  the  idea  of  Aryan  superiority,  and  yet  it 
was  upheld  with  as  much  verisimilitude.  Theorists  were 
found  who  asserted  and  even  tried  to  prove  that  the  Sem¬ 
ites  were  the  flower  of  mankind,  and  that  from  them 
came  whatever  good  there  was  in  the  Aryans.  Surely  one 
day  there  will  appear,  if  it  has  not  yet  happened,  an  eth¬ 
nologist  who  will  be  led  by  his  patriotism  to  prove  with 
equal  obviousness  that  the  Turanian  ought  to  occupy  the 
highest  place  in  history  and  anthropology. 

At  present,  the  Jews — who  consider  themselves  the 
highest  incarnation  of  Semitism — help  in  perpetuating 
this  belief  in  the  inequality  and  hierarchy  of  races.  The 
ethnologic  prejudice  is  universal,  and  those  even  who  suf¬ 
fer  from  it  are  its  most  tenacious  upholders.  Antisém¬ 
ites  and  philosemites  join  hands  to  defend  the  same  doc- 


240 


trines,  they  part  company  only  when  it  comes  to  award 
the  supremacy.  If  the  antisémite  reproaches  the  J ew  for 
being  a  part  of  a  strange  and  base  race,  the  Jew  vaunts 
of  belonging  to  an  elect  and  superior  race  ;  to  his  nobility 
and  antiquity  he  attaches  the  highest  importance  and 
even  now  he  is  the  prey  of  patriotic  pride.  Though  no 
longer  a  nation,  though  protesting  against  those  who  see 
in  him  the  representative  of  a  nation  encamped  among 
strange  nations,  he  nevertheless  harbors  in  the  depth  of 
his  heart  this  absurdly  vain  conviction,  and  thus  he  is 
like  the  chauvinists  of  all  lands.  Like  them  he  claims  to 
be  of  pure  origin,  while  his  assertion  is  no  more  well- 
founded,  and  we  have  to  examine  closely  the  asser¬ 
tion  of  Israel’s  enemy  and  of  Israel  himself  :  to  wit,  that 
the  Jews  are  the  most  united,  stable,  inpenetrable,  irre¬ 
ducible  nation. 

We  possess  no  documents  to  determine  the  ethnology  of 
the  nomadic  Bene-Israel,  but  probable  it  is  that  the 
twelve  tribes  constituting  this  people,  according  to  the 
tradition,  did  not  belong  to  a  single  stock.  They  were 
doubtless  heterogeneous  tribes,  for,  in  spite  of  its  legends, 
the  Jewish  nation  cannot,  any  more  than  the  other  na¬ 
tions,  boast  of  having  originated  from  a  single  couple, 
and  the  current  conception  which  represents  the  Hebrew 
tribe  as  subdividing  into  sub-tribes1  is  but  a  legendary 
and  traditional  conception, — that  of  the  Genesis, — and 
one  which  a  portion  of  historians  of  the  Hebrews  have 
wrongly  accepted.  Already  composed  of  various  unities 
among  which  doubtless  were  Turanian  and  Kushite 


1  Ernest  Renan,  Histoire  du  peuple  d'Israël,  y.  I. 


241 


groups,  i.  e yellows  and  blacks,1  the  Jews  added  still  other 
strange  elements  while  living  in  Egypt  and  in  the  land 
of  Canaan  which  they  conquered.  Later  on  Gog  and 
Magog,  the  Scythians,  coming  in  Josiah’s  reign  to  Jeru¬ 
salem’s  gates,  probably  left  their  impress  on  Israel.  But 
starting  with  the  first  captivity  the  mixtures  grow  in 
number.  “During  the  Babylonian  captivity,”  says  Mai- 
monides,2  “the  Israelites  mingled  with  all  sorts  of  for¬ 
eign  races  and  had  children,  who  formed,  owing  to  these 
unions,  a  kind  of  a  new  confusion  of  tongues,”  and  yet 
this  Babylonia,  where  there  were  cities  like  Mahuza,  al¬ 
most  entirely  peopled  by  Persians  converted  to  Judaism, 
was  deemed  to  contain  Jews  of  a  purer  race  than  the 
Jews  of  Palestine.  Said  an  old  proverb  :  “For  the  purity 
of  the  race,  the  difference  between  the  Jews  of  the  Ro¬ 
man  provinces  is  just  as  perceptible  as  the  difference  be¬ 
tween  dough  of  mediocre  quality  and  dough  made  of  the 
flour  of  meal;  but,  compared  to  Babylonia,  Judea  itself 
is  like  mediocre  dough.” 

This  means  that  Judea  had  undergone  many  vicissi¬ 
tudes.  It  had  always  been  the  transit  ground  for  the 
Mizraim  and  Assur  ;  afterwards,  on  returning  from  cap¬ 
tivity,  the  Jews  united  with  the  Samaritans,  Edomites 
and  Moabites.  After  the  conquest  of  Idumea  by  Hyrcan, 


1  Three  elements  are  found  at  the  basis  of  every  civilization  : 
the  white,  the  yellow  and  the  black.  We  see  it  in  Egypt,  where 
they  adjoined  a  red  element,  in  Mesopotamia,  in  India,  every¬ 
where  where  great  empires  arose,  and  it  may  almost  be  asserted 
that  the  co-operation  of  these  three  types  of  mankind  is  neces¬ 
sary  to  establish  durable  civilizations. 

2Maimonides,  Y  ad  Hazaha  (the  powerful  hand),  Part  I,  chap. 
1,  §4. 


242 


there  were  Jewish  and  Idumean  unions,  and  it  was  said 
that,  during  the  war  with  Rome,  the  Latin  conquerors 
had  begotten  sons.  “Are  we  perfectly  sure,”  said  Rabbi 
Ulla,  melancholically,  to  Judah-ben  Ezekiel,  “that  we  are 
not  descended  from  pagans  who  dishonored  the  young 
daughters  of  Zion  after  the  capture  of  Jerusalem?” 

But  what  was  most  conducive  to  the  introduction  of 
foreign  blood  into  the  Jewish  nation  was  proselytism. 
The  Jews  were  a  propagandist  nation  par  excellence ,  and 
from  the  construction  of  the  Second  Temple  and  partic¬ 
ularly  after  the  dispersion,  their  zeal  was  considerable. 
They  were  exactly  those  of  whom  the  Gospel  says,  that 
they  ran  over  “earth  and  sea  to  make  a  proselyte,”1  and 
with  perfect  right  could  Rabbi  Eliezer  exclaim  :  “Where¬ 
fore  has  God  scattered  the  J ews  among  the  nations  ?  To 
recruit  for  Him  proselytes  everywhere.”2  There  are 
abundant  proofs  of  the  proselyting  ardor  of  the  Jews,3 
and  during  the  first  centuries  before  the  Christian  era 
Judaism  spread  with  the  same  vigor  as  characterized 
Christianity  and  Mohammedanism  later  on.  Rome, 
Alexandria,  Antioch — where  nearly  all  the  Jews  were 
converted  gentiles — Damask,  Cyprus  were  the  centres  of 
fusion,  as  I  have  already  pointed  out.1  Hay,  more,  the 
Hasmonide  conquerors  compelled  the  vanquished  Syri¬ 
ans  to  circumcise;  kings,  carrying  their  subjects  along, 
converted,  as,  e.  g.,  the  family  of  Adiabenus,  and  the  pop- 

1  Matth.  xxiii. 

3  Talmud  Babli,  Pesaohim,  f.  87. 

3  Horace,  Sat.  IV,  143. — Josephus  Bell.  Jud.,  vii,  III.,  3. — • 
Dio  Cassius,  xxxvii,  xvii,  etc.,  etc. 

*Cf.  Ch.  II  ;  ch.  Ill  and  ch.  IV. 


243 


ulation  was  very  mixed  in  certain  cantons  of  Palestine 
itself,  as  was  the  case  with  Galilea,  in  that  “circle  of  gen¬ 
tiles”  where  J esns  was  to  be  born. 

The  Jewish  propaganda  did  not  cease  after  the  Chris¬ 
tian  era,  it  was  practiced  even  by  force,  and  when,  under 
Heraclius,  Benjamin  of  Tiberias  conquered  Judaea,  the 
Palestinian  Christians  converted  by  the  wholesale.  The 
persistence — the  continuity  of  this  propaganda  as  I 
have  said,  was  one  of  the  causes  of  théologie  antisemitism. 
For  centuries  long,  the  councils  legislated,  and  measures 
were  taken  to  prevent  the  Jews  from  attracting  the  be¬ 
lievers  to  them,  to  forbid  them  to  circumcise  their  slaves, 
to  prohibit  them  to  marry  Christians.  But  up  to  the 
moment  of  general  persecutions,  i.  e.,  until  it  became 
dangerous  to  be  a  Jew,  the  canonic  prescripts  were  pow¬ 
erless  to  check  these  proselytisms  and,  at  times,  when  a 
great  event  took  place  or  a  scandal  broke  out,  we  can  see 
Jewish  propaganda  at  work.  A  bishop,  converted  in  514, 
afterwards  the  deacon  Bodon,1  demands  circumcision  and 
assumes  the  name  of  Eliezer.  Often  the  popes  intervene 
with  their  bulls — as  e.  q.}  Clement  IV,  in  1255.  and 
Honorius  IV,  in  1288.  The  kings  even  take  a  hand  in 
the  matter,  as  did  Phillip  the  Fair,  who,  in  1298,  in¬ 
structed  the  justiciars  of  the  realm  “to  punish  the  Jews 
who  convert  to  their  own  faith  Christians,  by  means  of 
gifts.” 

All  over  Europe  the  Jews  attracted  proselytes,  thus  re¬ 
juvenating  their  blood  by  the  admixture  of  new  blood. 
They  made  converts  in  Spain  where  successive  councils 
at  Toledo  forbade  mixed  marriages;  in  Switzerland, 


1  Amolon,  Liber  contra  Judaeos. — Migne,  Patr.  Lat.  CXVI. 


244 


where  a  decree  of  the  fourteenth  century  sentenced  young 
girls  to  wearing  Jewish  hats  for  having  begotten  children 
by  Israelite  fathers  ;  in  Poland,  in  the  sixteenth  century, 
in  spite  of  Sigismund  Fs  edicts,  if  we  are  to  believe  the 
historian  Bielski.2  And  they  not  only  made  these  unions 
with  the  so-called  Aryan  nations  in  Europe,  but  also  with 
the  Ur alo- Altaians  and  Turanians;  there  the  infiltration 
was  more  considerable. 

On  the  shores  of  the  Black  and  the  Caspian  Sea,  the 
Jews  had  established  themselves  in  great  antiquity.  The 
story  goes  that  during  the  war  he  waged  against  King 
Tachus  (361  B.  C.)  in  Egypt,  Artaxerxes  Ochus  wrested 
the  Jews  from  their  land  and  transferred  them  to  Hyr- 
cania  on  the  Caspian  shore.  Even  if  their  establishment 
in  this  region  is  not  so  old  as  claimed  by  this  tradition, 
they  still  were  settled  there  long  before  the  Christian 
era,  witness  the  Greek  inscriptions  of  Anape,  Olbia  and 
Panticapea.  They  emigrated  in  the  seventh  and  eighth 
centuries  from  Babylonia  and  came  to  the  Tatar  cities, 
Kertsh,  Tarku,  Derbend,  etc.  About  620  they  converted 
there  a  whole  tribe,  the  Khazars,* 1  whose  territory  was  in 
the  neighborhood  of  Astrakhan.  Legend  seized  upon  this 
fact,  which  greatly  stirred  up  the  Jews  of  the  West,  but, 
despite  of  this,  there  can  be  no  doubt  about  it.  Isidore 
of  Seville,  a  contemporary  of  the  event,  mentions  it,  and 
afterwards  Chasdai  Ibn-Shaprut,  minister  of  the  Khalif 
Abd-er-Rahman,  corresponded  with  Joseph,  the  last 


2  Bielski,  Chronicon  rerum  Polonicarum. 

1  Vivien  de  Saint-Martin,  Les  Khazars  (Paris,  1851). — C. 
C.  d’Oklson,  Les  Peuples  du  Caucase,  Paris,  1828. — Revue  des 

Etudes  juives,  v.  XX,  p.  144. 


245 


Ivhagan  of  the  Khazars,  whose  kingdom  was  destroyed 
by  Svyatoslav,  prince  of  Kieff..  The  Khazars  exercised 
a  great  influence  over  the  neighboring  Slav  tribes,  the 
Polyane,  Sy every ane  and  Yyatichi,  and  made  numerous 
proselytes  among  them. 

The  Tatar  peoples  of  the  Caucasus  also  embraced  Ju¬ 
daism  in  the  twelfth  century,  according  to  the  report  of 
the  traveler  Petachya  of  Ratisbon.2  In  the  fourteenth 
century,  there  were  numerous  Jews  in  the  hordes,  which, 
with  Mam  ay  at  their  head,  invaded  the  lands  surround¬ 
ing  the  Caucasus.  It  was  in  this  nook  of  Eastern  Europe 
that  actively  went  on  the  fusion  of  Jews  and  Uralo-Al- 
taians;  here  the  Semite  mixed  with  the  Turanian ,  and 
even  now,  in  studying  the  nations  of  the  Caucasus,  one 
meets  with  traces  of  this  mixture  among  the  30,000  Jews 
of  that  country  and  the  tribes  surrounding  them.* 1 

Thus  this  Jewish  race  represented  by  Jews  and  anti- 
Semites  as  the  most  unassailable,  most  homogeneous  of 
races,  is  strongly  multifarious.  Antropologists  would  in 
the  first  place  divide  it  into  two  well-defined  parts  :  the 
dolichocephals  and  the  brachycephals.  To  the  first  type 
belong  the  Sephardic  Jews — the  Spanish  and  Portuguese 
Jews  as  well  as  the  greater  part  of  the  Jews  of  Italy  and 
Southern  France;  to  the  second  may  be  assigned  the 

2  Basnage,  Histoire  des  Juifs,  v.  IX,  p.  246;  and  Wagenseil, 
Exercitationes. 

1  Among  the  Chechens  inhabiting  the  East  and  Northwest  of 
the  Caucasus,  as  well  as  among  the  Andis  of  Daghestan,  the 
Jewish  type  is  very  widespread.  The  Tats  of  the  Caspian  Sea 
are  considered  to  be  Jews,  and  there  are  many  Jews  among 
the  Tatar  tribes,  as  the  Kumiks,  for  instance.  (Cf.  Eckert,  Der 

Kaukasus  und  seine  Volker,  Leipzig,  1887). 


246 


Ashkenazim,  i.  e.,  the  Polish,  Russian  and  German  Jews.2 
But  the  Sephardim  and  the  Ashkenazim  are  not  the  only 
two  known  varieties  of  Jews;  these  varieties  are  numer¬ 
ous. 

In  Africa  are  found  agricultural  and  nomadic  Jews, 
allied  with  the  Kabyls  and  Berberians,  near  Setif,  Guel- 
ma  and  Biskra,  at  the  frontier  of  Morocco  ;  in  caravan 
they  go  as  far  as  Timbuctoo,  and  some  of  their  tribes,  on 
the  borders  of  Sahara,  like  the  Daggatouns,  are  black 
tribes,* 1  as  also  are  the  Fellah  Jews  of  Abyssinia.2  In 
India,  one  finds  white  Jews  in  Bombay,  and  black  Jews 
in  Cochin  China,  but  the  white  J ews  have  in  them  mela- 
nian  blood.  They  settled  in  India  in  the  fifth  century, 
after  the  persecutions  of  the  Persian  King  Pheroces,  who 
banished  them  from  Bagdad.  Their  settling  is  at  all 
events  assigned  to  a  more  remote  date  :  the  coming  of  the 
Jews  into  China,  i.  e.,  before  Christ.  As  to  the  Jews  of 
China,  they  are  not  only  related  to  the  Chinese  surround¬ 
ing  them,  but  they  have  also  adopted  the  practices  of  the 
Confucian  religion.3 

The  Jew,  consequently,  has  incessantly  been  trans¬ 
formed  by  the  environments  in  which  he  stayed.  He 
has  changed  because  the  different  languages  which  he  has 

2  For  the  dolichocephalous  Jews  of  Africa  and  Italy,  cf.  the 
works  of  Primer-Bey  ( Mémoire  de  la  Société  d’ anthropologie,  II, 
p.  432  and  III,  p.  82)  and  Lombroso. — For  the  brachycephalous 
JeWs  cf.  Copernicki  and  Mayer,  Physical  Characteristics  of  the 
Population  of  Galicia,  Cracow,  1876  (In  Polish). 

1  Mardochee  Aby  Serour,  Les  Daggatouns,  Paris,  1880. 

2  On  the  Fellahs  cf.  Abbadie,  'Nouvelles  annales  des  Voyages , 
1845,  III,  p.  84,  and  Ph.  Luzzato,  Archives  israelites ,  1851-1854. 

8  Elie  Schwartz,  God's  Nation  in  China.  Strassburg,  1880. — 
Abbe  Sionnet,  Essai  sur  les  Juifs  de  la  Chine,  Paris,  1837. 


247 


spoken,  have  introduced  into  his  mind  different  and  op¬ 
posite  notions  ;  he  has  not  remained  such  as  a  united  and 
homogeneous  people  ought  to  be,  but,  on  the  contrary,  he 
is,  at  present,  the  most  heterogeneous  of  all  nations,  one 
that  presents  the  greatest  varieties.  And  this  pretended 
race  whose  stability  and  power  of  resistance  friend  and 
foe  agree  in  extolling,  affords  us  the  most  multifarious 
and  most  opposite  types,  since  they  range  from  the  white 
to  the  black  Jew,  passing  by  way  of  the  yellow  Jew,  not 
to  speak  of  the  secondary  divisions, — Jews  with  blonde 
and  red  hair,  and  brown  J ews  with  black  hair. 

Consequently,  the  ethnologic  grievance  of  the  anti- 
Semites  does  not  rest  upon  any  serious  and  real  founda¬ 
tion.  The  opposition  of  the  Aryans  and  the  Semites  is 
artificial  ;  it  is  not  correct  to  say  that  the  Aryan  race  and 
the  Semitic  race  are  pure  races,  and  that  the  Jew  is  a  sin¬ 
gle  and  unvarying  people.  Semitic  blood  has  mingled  with 
Aryan  blood  and  Aryan  blood  has  mixed  with  Semitic 
blood.  Aryans  and  Semites  have  both,  furthermore,  re¬ 
ceived  an  admixture  of  Turanian  blood  and  Hamite, 
Negro  or  Negroid  blood,  and  in  the  Babel  of  nationali¬ 
ties  and  races  which  the  world  is  at  present,  the  pre¬ 
occupation  of  those  who  seek  to  discover  who  among  his 
neighbors  is  an  Aryan,  a  Turanian,  a  Semite,  is  a  vain 
pursuit. 

In  spite  of  this  there  is  a  portion  of  truth  in  the  griev¬ 
ance  which  we  have  examined,  or,  rather,  the  theories  of 
the  antisémites  about  the  inequality  of  races  and  Aryan 
superiorit}q  in  one  word,  the  anthropologic  prejudices 
are  but  the  veil  which  covers  some  real  causes  of  anti¬ 
semitism. 


248 


We  have  said  that  there  are  no  races,  but  there  are 
peoples  and  nations.  What  is  improperly  called  a  race 
is  not  an  ethnologic  unit,  but  is  an  historic,  intellectual 
and  moral  unit.  The  Jews  are  not  an  ethnos ,  but  they 
are  a  nationality,  they  are  diversified  types,  it  is  true,  but 
what  nation  is  not  diversified  ?  What  makes  a  people  is 
not  unity  of  origin,  but  unity  of  sentiments,  ideas,  ethics. 
Let  us  see  whether  the  Jews  do  not  present  this  unity, 
and  whether  we  cannot  find  therein,  in  part,  the  secret  of 
the  animosity  shown  them. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

NATIONALISM  AND  ANTISEMITISM. 

The  Jews  in  the  World. — Race  and  Nation. — Are  the 
Jews  a  Nation? — The  Midst,  the  Laws,  the  Cus¬ 
toms. — The  Religion  and  the  Rites. — The  Language 
and  Literature. — The  Jewish  Spirit. — Does  the  Jew 
Believe  in  His  Nationality? — The  Restoration  of 
the  Jewish  Empire. — Jewish  Chauvinism. — The 
Jew  and  the  Strangers  to  His  Law. — Is  the  Talmud 
Anti-Social  ? — Once  and  Now. — The  Permanence  of 
Prejudices. — Jewish  Exclusiveness  and  Persistence 
of  the  Type. — The  Principle  of  Nationalities  in  the 
Nineteenth  Century. — In  Germany  and  Italy. — In 
Austria,  in  Russia  and  Eastern  Europe. — Panger- 
manism  and  Panslavism. — The  Idea  of  Nationality, 
the  J ew  and  Antisemitism. — The  Heterogeneous 


249 


Elements  in  the  Nations. — Elimination  or  Absorp¬ 
tion. — National  Egoism. — Preservation  or  Trans¬ 
formation. — The  Two  Tendencies.— Patriotism  and 
Humanitarianism. — N ationalism,  Internationalism 
and  Anti-Semitism. — Jewish  Cosmopolitanism  and 
the  Idea  of  Fatherland. — The  Jews  and  the  Revolu¬ 
tion. 

There  are  about  eight  million  Jews  scattered  over  the 
face  of  the  earth/  nearly  seven-eighths  of  which  inhabit 
Europe.* 1  Among  these  Jews  figure  the  Bedoween  Jews 
living  on  the  confines  of  Sahara,  the  Daggaouns  of  the 

1  It  is  very  difficult  to  estimate  exactly  the  Jewish  popula¬ 
tion  of  the  world.  On  the  one  hand  the  antisémites  overdraw 
the  probable  figures,  desirous  as  they  are  of  proving  the  Jewish 
invasion  ;  on  the  other  hand,  the  Jews  or  the  philosemites,  led  on 
by  contrary  interests,  in  their  turn  diminish  these  figures.  Thus 
the  antisémites  readily  give  the  number  as  nine  millions,  if  not 
all  ten,  the  philosemites  or  the  Jews  (Cf.  Loeb,  article  “Jew” 
in  Vivien  de  Saint-Martin’s  Dictionaire  de  Géographie. — Th. 
Reinach,  Histoire  des  Israelites)  give  the  number  at  6,300,000; 
but  in  their  estimate  they  set  down  the  number  of  Russian  Jews 
at  2,552,000,  which  is  much  below  the  actual  figures  of  4,500,000 
at  the  least  (Leo  Efrera,  Les  Juif  es  Russes ).  I  have  therefore 
adopted  8,000,000  as  the  total  population,  which  seemed  to  me 
the  figure  nearest  approaching  the  truth.  [The  figure  is  an  un¬ 
derestimate  ;  the  number  of  Russian  Jews,  according  to  the 
Russian  census  of  1897,  was  5,700,00. — Translator.] 

1  It  is  possible  that  the  increasing  emigration  of  Polish  and 
Russian  Jews  to  the  United  States  should  cause  a  difference  in 
in  these  figures.  At  present  there  are  about  250  or  300  thou¬ 
sand  Jews  in  the  United  States,  [about  1,135,00  in  1902. — 
Translator]  and  if  their  number  does  not  enormously  increase 
from  year  to  year,  it  means  that  the  Jews  of  the  United  States 
have  a  very  marked  tendency  to  blend  in  the  surrounding  popu¬ 
lation.  This  refers  to  the  fact  that  the  majority  of  the  Jewish 
immigrants  belong  to  the  working  class. 


250 


desert,  the  Fellahs  of  Abyssinia,  the  black  Jews  of  India, 
the  Mongoloid  Jews  of  China,  the  Kalmuk  and  Tatar 
Jews  of  the  Caucasus,  the  blonde  Jews  of  Bohemia  and 
Germany,  the  brown  J ews  of  Portugal,  Southern  France, 
Italy  and  the  Orient,  the  dolichocephalous  J  ews,  the  bra- 
ehycephalous  and  sub-brachycephalous  Jews,  all  Jews, 
who,  according  to  the  section  of  their  hair,  the  shape  of 
their  skull,  the  color  of  their  skin,  could  be  classified,  on 
the  strength  of  the  best  principles  of  ethnology,  into  four 
or  five  different  races,  as  we  have  just  shown. 

By  comparing,  e.  g.,  the  inhabitants  of  the  different 
departments  of  France,  we  might,  in  exactly  the  same 
way,  prove  that  the  differences  observable  between  a  Pro¬ 
vencal  and  a  Breton,  a  Niceois  and  a  Picardian,  a  Nor- 
mandian  and  Aquitanian,  a  Lorrain  and  a  Basque,  an 
Auvergnat  and  a  Savoyard  do  not  permit  the  belief  in  the 
existence  of  the  French  race. 

Still,  proceeding  in  this  way,  we  shall  really  have 
proven  that  the  race  is  not  an  ethnologic  unity,  i.  e., 
that  no  people  is  a  descendant  of  common  parents,  and 
that  no  nation  has  been  formed  from  the  aggregation  of 
cells  of  this  kind.  But  we  shall  by  no  means  have  proven 
that  there  exists  no  French  people,  a  German  people,  an 
English  people,  etc.,  and  we  should  not  be  able  to  do 
it,  since  there  exists  an  English  literature,  a  German 
literature,  a  French  literature,  different  literatures  all 
of  them,  expressing  in  a  different  way  common  senti¬ 
ments,  it  is  true,  but  whose  objective  and  subjective  play 
upon  the  various  individuals  affected  by  them  is  not  the 
same,  sentiments  common  to  human  nature,  but  ones 
which  each  man  and  each  collection  of  men  feels  and  ex- 


251 


presses  in  a  different  way.  We  have  had  to  reject  the  an¬ 
thropologic  notion  of  race,  a  notion  which  is  erroneous 
and  which  we  shall  see  to  have  given  origin  to  the  worst 
opinions,  the  most  detestable  and  least  justifiable  van¬ 
ities,  that  anthropologic  notion  which  tends  to  make  of 
each  people  an  association  of  proud  and  egoistic  recluses, 
but  we  are  forced  to  admit  the  existence  of  historical  units 
i.  e.,  separate  nations.  For  the  idea  of  race  we  substi¬ 
tute  the  idea  of  nation,  and  again  we  have  to  make  an 
explanation,  for  the  nineteenth  century  based  its  belief 
in  nationalities  on  its  belief  in  race,  and  an  innate  race 
at  that. 

What  is  commonly  understood  by  race  ?  According  to 
Littré,  a  nation  is  a  “union  of  human  beings  inhabiting 
the  same  territory  subjected  or  not  subjected  to  the  same 
government,  and  having  had  common  interests  long 
enough  to  allow  of  considering  them  as  belonging  to  the 
same  raced'  To  this  definition  of  a  nation  Littré  opposes 
that  of  a  people:  “A  multitude  of  human  beings  who 
even  though  not  inhabiting  the  same  country,  have  the 
same  religion  and  are  of  the  same  origin.”  According  to 
Mancini,1  a  nation  is  a  “natural  community  of  human  be¬ 
ings  united  by  their  country,  origin,  manners,  language, 
and  being  conscious  of  this  community.”  To  follow 
Bluntschli,2  a  people  may  be  defined  as  follows  :  “The 
community  of  spirit,  sentiment,  race,  which  has  become 
hereditary  in  a  mass  of  human  beings  of  different  pro- 

^lancini,  Della  Nazionalita  come  fondamento  del  diritto  delle 
genti.  Naples,  1873. 

2  Bluntschli,  Théorie  generale  de  VEtat.  (Traduction  A.  de 
Piedmatten)  Paris,  1891. 


252 


fessions  and  classes  ;  a  mass  which — leaving  the  political 
bond  out  of  consideration — feels  united  by  culture  and 
origin,  especially  by  language  and  manners,  and  -which 
is  strange  to  others.”  As  for  nation,  again  to  follow 
Bluntschli,  it  is  a  “community  of  men  united  and  or¬ 
ganized  into  a  state.”  Thus  it  is  plain  that  in  order  to 
succeed  in  discriminating  a  people  from  a  nation  one 
must  introduce  either  a  territorial  unity,  as  does  Littré, 
or  a  state  unity  as  does  Bluntschli;  in  other  -words,  an 
outside  matter,  one  above  those  constituting  the  people 
and  the  nation  which  can  actually  be  identified. 

To  sum  up.  Customarily  a  nation  is  called  an  agglom¬ 
eration  of  individuals  having  in  common  their  territory, 
language,  religion,  law,  customs,  manners,  spirit,  his¬ 
toric  mission.  Now,  we  have  seen  that  a  common  race, 
innate  race,  a  race  implying  the  same  origin  and  purity 
of  blood  is  but  a  fiction;  the  idea  of  race  is  not  neces¬ 
sarily  linked  with  the  conception  of  a  nation — proof  that 
the  Basques,  Bretons,  Provencals,  belong  all  to  the 
French  nation,  though  very  different  anthropologically. 
As  for  territorial  community,  it  is  not  a  whit  more  ne¬ 
cessary;  the  Poles,  e.  g.,  possess  no  common  territory, 
and  yet  there  is  a  Polish  nation.  Language,  too,  does  not 
seem  indispensable,  and  indeed  one  may  refer  to  Swit¬ 
zerland,  Austria,  Belgium,  in  which  countries  two  or 
several  languages  are  spoken,  but  these  countries,  organ¬ 
ized, — with  the  exception  of  Switzerland, — federatively, 
permit  us  on  the  contrary,  to  assert  that  language  is 
clearly  the  sign  of  nationality,  since  in  all  of  them  those 
speaking  the  same  language  strive  to  group  together,  in 
other  words,  that  one  language  tends  to  become  prepon- 


253 


derant  and  destroy  the  others.  Religion  was  formerly 
one  of  the  most  important  forces  that  contributed  to  the 
formation  of  peoples.  We  cannot  possibly  realize  what 
Rome,  Athens  or  Sparta  had  been,  if  we  disregard  the 
Gods  of  Olympus  and  the  Capitolium  ;  the  same  is  true 
of  Memphis,  Nineveh,  Babylon  and  Jerusalem,  and  what 
becomes  of  the  Middle  Ages  if  we  leave  out  Christianity  ? 
The  influence  of  religion  was  preponderant  for  centuries 
long,  but  since  a  few  years  it  has  had  a  very  limited 
power,  and  in  certain  countries  only,  as  in  Russia,  for 
instance,  the  unity  of  faith  is  sought  for  and  is  made  one 
of  the  constitutive  and  indispensable  elements  of  nation¬ 
ality.  Elsewhere  multiplicity  of  religious  confessions 
is  no  obstacle  to  unity  ;  still  it  is  well  to  add,  that  in  all 
European  lands  religion  was  the  first  unity  known,  and 
that,  leaving  the  Ottoman  Empire  out  of  account,  all 
the  European  States  and  peoples  were  first  of  all  Chris¬ 
tian  States  and  peoples.  The  Reformation  was  the  last 
religious  effort  aiming  at  unity,  and  after  the  religious 
war  the  toleration  edicts  marked  the  end  of  the  domina¬ 
tion  of  dogmas  over  nationalities.  Still,  Christianity 
has  left  its  impress  on  manners,  customs,  morality. 
However  its  principles,  metaphysics,  ethics  be  judged, 
it  has  been  one  of  the  most  important  factors  in  the 
life  of  the  European  nations  and  the  individuals  com¬ 
posing  them;  it  is  the  common  ground  on  which  the 
various  edifices  have  been  built;  it  is  one  of  the  funda¬ 
mental  notions  to  which  a  good  many  others  were  added, 
which  have  been  worked  in  various  ways  but  are  found  in 
the  strata  of  modern  societies.  Christianity  was  one  of 
the  steady  elements  of  the  spirit  of  various  peoples  of  the 


254 


old  and  the  new  continent,  but  what  has  differentiated 
the  peoples  and  created  their  personality — was  the  man¬ 
ners,  customs,  art,  language  with  the  thousand  peculiar 
ideas  which  it  generates  by  means  of  its  literature,  and 
philosophy.  The  dissimilarity  of  individuals  is  caused 
by  the  different  way  in  which  they  interpret  general  and 
common  ideas,  as  also  by  the  different  way  in  which  they 
are  impressed  by  phenomena  and  the  manner  in  which 
they  construe  them.  It  is  the  same  with  collective  bodies. 
They  consist  of  various  beings,  each  of  'whom,  it  is  true, 
is  a  substance  apart,  but  all  follow  certain  directions  in 
common.  What  gives  these  directions  ?  Language,  next, 
also,  the  traditions,  interests  and  historic  destinies  be¬ 
longing  to  all  these  beings  in  common.  But  to  this 
must  be  added — as  was  done  by  Mancini, — the  conscious¬ 
ness  of  this  community.  This  consciousness  was  slowly 
worked  out  in  the  course  of  ages,  through  thousands  of 
blows  from  outside,  thousands  of  struggles  within,  but 
the  nations  began  to  exist  only  on  the  day  when  they 
came  to  this  self-consciousness,  and  once  born  this  con¬ 
sciousness  became  one  more  factor  for  nationality. 
Without  it  there  is  no  nationality;  but  once  it  exists  it 
reacts,  in  its  turn,  on  the  brains  of  each  individual  and 
this  national  self-consciousness,  the  last  to  be  formed,  is 
also  the  last  to  disappear,  after  the  territory,  manners, 
practices,  customs,  and  religion  have  disappeared  and 
literature  no  longer  lives. 

Nations,  consequently,  do  exist.  These  nations  may 
sometimes  not  be  organized  under  the  same  government  ; 
they  may  have  lost  their  fatherland,  their  language,  but 
the  nation  continues  as  long  as  have  not  disappeared  this 


255 


self-consciousness  and  the  consciousness  of  that  com¬ 
munity  of  thought  and  interests  which  they  represent 
by  the  fictitious  background  of  race,  filiation,  origin  and 
purity  of  blood. 

Now  let  us  turn  to  the  Jew.  We  have  seen  that  he 
does  not  exist,  as  far  as  race  is  concerned,  and  those  are 
in  error  who  say  :  “There  is  no  longer  a  J ewish  people, 
there  is  a  J  ewish  fellowship  closely  united  with  a  race.”1 
It  remains  to  inquire  whether  the  Jew  is  not  a  part  of  a 
nation  composed,  dike  all  nations,  of  various  elements, 
and  nevertheless  possessing  unity.  Now,  if  we  leave 
aside  the  Abyssinian  Fellaheen,  some  little  known  no¬ 
madic  Jewish  tribes  of  Africa,  the  black  Jews  of  India, 
and  the  Chinese  Jews,  we  arrive  at  the  conclusion  that 
by  the  side  of  the  pointed  out  differences  which  distin¬ 
guish  these  Jews  they  possess  also  common  peculiarities, 
a  common  individuality  and  a  common  type.  Still,  the 
J ews  have  lived  in  quite  contrasting  countries,  they  were 
subjected  to  very  diverse  climatic  influences,  they  were 
surrounded  by  very  dissimilar  peoples.  What  is  it  that 
succeeded  in  keeping  them  such  as  they  have  remained 
until  to-day?  Why  do  they  continue  to  exist  otherwise 
than  as  a  religious  confession?  This  is  due  to  three 
causes:  one  depending  on  the  Jews — religion;  another 
for  which  they  are  partly  responsible — their  social  con¬ 
dition;  the  third,  which  is  external — the  conditions 
which  have  been  forced  upon  them. 

No  religion  has  ever  moulded  soul  and  spirit  as  has 
the  Jewish  religion.  Nearly  all  religions  have  had  a 

1  A.  Franck,  lecture  on  “Religion  and  Science  in  Judaism/'  in 
Annuaire  de  la  Société  des  Etudes  Juives,  2nd  year. 


256 


philosophy,  ethics,  a  literature  alongside  of  their  re¬ 
ligious  dogmas  ;  with  Israel  religion  was  simultaneously 
ethics  and  metaphysics,  nay,  more,  it  was  law.  The 
Jews  had  no  symbolic  independence  from  their  legisla¬ 
tion  ;  no,  after  the  return  from  the  second  captivity,  they 
had  Yahweh  and  his  Law,  each  inseparable  from  the 
other.  To  become  part  of  the  nation  one  had  to  accept 
not  its  God  only,  but  also  all  legal  prescriptions  emanat¬ 
ing  from  Him  and  bearing  the  stamp  of  sanctity.  Had 
the  Jew  had  only  Yahweh,  he  would  probably  have  van¬ 
ished  in  the  midst  of  the  different  peoples  that  had  re¬ 
ceived  him,  just  as  had  vanished  the  Phoenicians  who 
carried  only  Melkart  with  them.  But  the  Jew  had  some¬ 
thing  more  than  his  God — he  had  his  Torah,  his  law, 
and  by  it  he  has  been  preserved.  He  not  only  did  not 
lose  this  law  when  losing  his  ancestral  territory,  but,  on 
the  contrary,  he  has  strengthened  its  authority;  he  has 
developed  it;  he  has  increased  its  power  as  well  as  its 
property.  After  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  the  law 
became  the  bond  of  Israel;  he  lived  for  and  by  his  law. 
But  this  law  was  minute  and  meddlesome,  it  was  the 
most  perfect  manifestation  of  the  ritual  religion — into 
which  the  Jewish  religion  turned  under  the  influence  of 
its  doctors,  an  influence  which  mav  be  contrasted  with 
the  spiritualism  of  the  prophets  whose  tradition  Jesus 
carried  on.  These  rites  which  foresaw  every  act  in 
life,  and  which  the  Talmudists  made  infinitely  compli¬ 
cated,  have  given  shape  to  the  Jewish  brain,  and  every¬ 
where,  in  all  lands,  they  have  shaped  it  in  the  same  man¬ 
ner.  Though  scattered,  the  Jews  thought  the  same  way 
in  Seville,  York,  Ancona,  Ratisbon,  Troyes  and  Prague  ; 


257 


they  had  the  same  feelings  and  ideas  about  human  be¬ 
ings  and  things;  thew  viewed  things  through  the  same 
eye-glasses;  they  judged  according  to  similar  principles, 
of  which  they  could  not  get  rid,  since  there  were  no 
small  and  grave  obligations  in  the  law,  all  of  them  had 
the  same  import,  as  they  all  emanated  from  God.  All 
those  attracted  by  the  Jews  were  caught  in  the  terrible 
gear  which  kneaded  the  minds  and  cast  them  into  a 
uniform  mould.  Thus  the  law  created  peculiarities; 
these  peculiarities  the  Jews  transmitted  to  one  another, 
as  they  constituted  everywhere  a  close  association  keep¬ 
ing  strictly  aloof,  in  order  to  be  able  to  perform  the 
legal  prescriptions,  and  thus  having  still  more  power 
of  preservation  as  it  was  opposed  to  penetration.  The 
law  created  not  only  particularities  but  it  created  types 
as  well:  a  moral  type  as  well  as  a  physical  type.  The 
influence  which  the  exercise  of  mental  faculties  and  the 
direction  of  these  faculties  have  on  the  physiological  in¬ 
dividual  is  well  known.  It  is  known  that  certain  human 
beings  engaged  in  the  same  intellectual  pursuits  acquire 
special  and  similar  traits.  Under  our  very  eyes  profes¬ 
sional  types  are  in  the  process  of  formation,  and  Gal- 
ton’s  experiments  with  this  creation  of  common  char¬ 
acteristics  by  means  of  common  thought  are  well  known. 
The  Jewish  type  has  been  formed  in  a  way  analogous 
to  that  in  which  were  formed  and  are  still  forming 
the  type  of  a  physician,  the  type  of  a  lawyer,  etc.,  types 
produced  by  the  identity  of  the  social  and  psychic  func¬ 
tion.  The  Jew  is  a  confessional  type;  such  as  he  is  he 
has  beenmade  by  the  law  and  the  Talmud  ;  more  powerful 
than  blood  or  climatic  varieties,  they  have  developed  in 


258 


him  the  characteristics  which  imitation  and  heredity 
have  perpetuated. 

Social  characteristics  were  added  to  these  confessional 
characteristics.  We  have  spoken* 1  of  the  role  played  by 
the  Jew  during  the  Middle  Ages,  how  internal  and  ex¬ 
ternal  causes,  proceeding  from  economic  and  psycholog¬ 
ical  laws,  led  them  to  become  almost  exclusively  traders, 
and  above  all  dealers  in  gold  at  a  time  when  capital 
was  forced  to  be  creditor  in  order  to  be  productive. 
This  role  was  general  ;  the  Jews  filled  it  in  all  countries, 
not  in  any  particular  one  only.  To  their  common 
religious  preoccupations  were  consequently  added  com¬ 
mon  social  preoccupations.  As  a  religious  being  the  J ew 
was  already  thinking  in  a  certain  way  wherever  he  was  ; 
as  a  social  being  he  again  thought  identically  ;  thus  other 
peculiarities  were  created,  which,  too,  spread  peculiar¬ 
ities,  the  formation  of  which  was  general  and  simul¬ 
taneous  with  all  Jews.  But  however  he  isolated  him¬ 
self,  the  Jew  was  not  alone;  the  peoples  he  lived  among 
reacted  on  him  and  could  be  causes  of  changes.  The 
natural  midst  is  not  everything  for  a  man  living  in 
society.  True,  its  influence  is  great,  and  sometimes  it 
may,  in  a  high  degree  contribute  to  the  formation  of 
nations,1  but  there  is  a  social  midst  whose  influence  is 
not  less  considerable,  and  this  social  midst  is  created 
by  the  laws,  manners  and  customs.  Had  the  Jews  lived 
in  different  social  surroundings,  they  would,  no  doubt. 


T.hapt.  VII. 

1  For  instance  the  transformations  of  the  Anglo-Saxons  in 
the  United  States  of  America,  and  the  transformations  of  the 
Dutch  in  the  Transvaal. 


259 


have  been  different  mentally  as  well  as  physically.1  This 
was  not  the  case,  and  their  social  and  political  midst  was 
the  same  everywhere.  In  Spain,  France,  Italy,  Germany, 
Poland,  the  legislation  against  the  Jews  was  identical, 
a  fact  quite  easy  of  explanation  as  in  all  these  lands  the 
legislation  was  inspired  by  the  church.  The  Jew  was 
placed  under  the  same  restrictions,  the  same  barriers 
were  built  around  him,  he  was  ruled  by  the  same  laws. 
He  had  kept  apart,  and  so  they  kept  him  apart;  he  had 
endeavored  to  distinguish  himself  from  the  others,  and 
they  distinguished  him  ;  he  had  retired  into  his  abode  to 
be  able  to  perform  freely  his  rites, — he  was  shut  up  in 
his  Ghettoes.  The  Jew  obtained  a  territory  on  the  day 
be  was  imprisoned  in  these  Jewries,  and  the  Israelites 
lived  since  then  exactly  like  a  people  that  had  a  father- 
land  of  its  own;  in  these  special  quarters  they  pre¬ 
served  their  customs,  manners  and  secular  habits,  scrup¬ 
ulously  transmitted  by  an  education  which  was  every¬ 
where  guided  by  the  same  invariable  principles. 

This  education  did  not  preserve  the  traditions  only, 
it  was  preserving  the  language.  The  J ew  spoke  the  lan¬ 
guage  of  the  country  he  inhabited,  but  he  spoke  it  only 
because  it  was  indispensable  in  his  business  transactions  ; 
once  at  home  he  made  use  of  a  corrupt  Hebrew  or  of  a 
jargon  of  which  Hebrew  formed  the  basis.  For  writing- 
purposes  he  employed  Hebrew,  and  the  Bible  and  the 
Talmud  do  not  constitute  the  whole  of  Hebrew  litera- 


1  If  I  seem  to  say  that  all  Jews  are  alike  physically,  I  want  to 
speak  of  their  general  physiognomy  only,  which  is  their  common 
property,  without  prejudicing  the  truth  about  the  differences 
which  I  have  stated, 


260 


ture.  The  Jewish  literary  productivity  from  the  eighth 
to  the  fifteenth  century  was  very  great.  There  has  been 
a  neo-hebraic  poetry  of  the  synagogue,  which  was  par¬ 
ticularly  copious  and  brilliant  in  Spain  ;*  there  has  been 
a  Jewish  religious  philosophy  which  was  born  with 
Saadiah  in  Egypt  and  which  Ibn  Gebirol  and  Maimon- 
ides  developed  afterwards;  there  has  been  a  Jewdsh 
theology  since  the  time  of  Joseph  Albo  and  Jehuda 
Halevi,  and  Jewish  metaphysics — that  is  the  Kabbala. 
This  literature,  this  philosophy,  this  theology,  these 
metaphysics  were  the  common  property  of  the  Israelites 
of  all  countries.  Up  to  the  moment  when  the  obscurant¬ 
ist  efforts  of  the  rabbis  had  closed  their  ears  and  their 
eyes, — their  spirit  drew  upon  the  same  source,  they  were 
roused  by  the  same  thoughts,  they  dreamt  the  same 
dreams,  they  made  merry  to  the  same  rhythms,  the 
same  poetry,  the  same  preoccupations  went  with  them 
and  thus  they  underwent  the  same  impressions,  which 
similarly  shaped  their  spirit,  that  Jewish  spirit  com¬ 
posed  of  a  thousand  diverse  elements  and  still  not  per¬ 
ceptibly  different  from  the  ancient  Jewish  spirit,  at 
least  in  its  general  tendencies,  for  those  who  aided  in 
creating  it  were  brought  up  on  the  ancient  law. 

Thus,  consequently,  the  Jews  had  the  same  religion, 
manners,  habits  and  customs,  they  were  subjected  to 
the  same  civil,  religious,  moral  and  restrictive  laws; 
they  lived  in  similar  conditions;  in  each  city  they 
had  their  owm  territory,  they  spoke  the  same  language, 

1  Cf.  Mnnk,  De  la  Poesie  hébraïque  apres  la  Bible,  in  Temps  of 
Jan.  19,  1835,  and  the  works  of  Zunz,  Rappoport  and  Abraham 
Geiger.  Cf.  also  Amador  de  los  Rios,  Histoire  des  Juifs  d’Es¬ 
pagne  (1875). 


261 


they  enjoyed  a  literature,  they  speculated  over  the  same 
persisting  and  very  old  ideas.  This  alone  was  sufficient 
to  constitute  a  nation.  They  had  even  more  than  that  : 
they  have  had  the  consciousness  of  being  a  nation,  that 
they  had  never  ceased  to  be  one.  After  they  had  left 
Palestine,  in  the  first  centuries  before  the  Christian  era, 
a  bond  always  tied  them  to  Jerusalem;  after  Jerusalem 
had  been  plunged  in  flames,  they  had  their  exilarchs, 
their  Nassis  and  Gaons ,  their  schools  of  doctors,  schools 
of  Babylon,  Palestine,  then  Egypt,  finally  of  Spain  and 
France.  The  chain  of  tradition  has  never  been  broken. 
They  have  ever  considered  themselves  exiles  and  have 
deluded  themselves  with  the  dream  of  the  restoration  of 
IsraePs  kingdom  on  earth.  Every  year,  on  the  eve  of 
the  Passover  they  have  chanted  from  the  depth  of  their 
whole  beings,  three  times  the  sentence  :  “ Leshana  haba 
VYerusiialaim ”  (the  next  year  in  Jerusalem!).  They 
have  preserved  their  ancient  patriotism,  even  their 
chauvinism  ;  in  spite  of  disasters,  misfortunes,  out¬ 
rages,  slavery,  they  have  considered  themselves  the  elect 
people,  one  superior  to  all  other  peoples,  which  is  char¬ 
acteristic  of  all  chauvinist  nations,  the  Germans  as  well 
as  the  French  and  English  of  to-day.  At  one  time  in  the 
beginning  of  the  Middle  Ages,  the  Jew  was  really  su¬ 
perior,  because,  he,  the  inheritor  of  an  already  ancient 
civilization,  the  possessor  of  a  literature,  philosophy  and 
above  all  experience,  which  should  have  given  him  the 
advantage,  came  into  the  midst  of  barbarian  children. 
He  lost  that  supremacy,  and  in  the  fourteenth  century 
even,  his  was  already  a  culture  lower  than  the  general 
culture  of  those  in  the  same  class  with  him.  But  he  has 


religiously  kept  this  idea  of  supremacy,  has  kept  on  look¬ 
ing  with  disdain  and  scorn  upon  all  those  who  were 
strangers  to  his  law.  However,  he  was  taught  to  be  such 
by  his  book,  the  Talmud  pervaded  by  a  narrow  and 
ferocious  patriotism.  The  book  has  been  charged  with 
being  anti-social,  and  there  is  some  truth  in  this  accu¬ 
sation  ;  it  has  been  claimed  that  it  is  the  most  abominable 
code  of  law  and  ethics,  and  therein  lay  the  error,  since 
it  is  neither  more  nor  less  execrable  than  all  particularist 
and  national  codes.  If  it  is  anti-social,  it  is  so  only  in 
that  it  represented  and  still  represents  a  spirit  differing 
from  that  of  the  laws  in  force  in  the  country  where  the 
Jews  lived  and  that  the  Jews  wanted  to  follow  their  code 
before  following  the  one  to  which  every  member  of  so¬ 
ciety  was  amenable,  and  again  it  is  unsocial  only  in  a 
relative  sense,  as  the  law  was  not  always  uniform  and 
custom  invariable  in  all  parts  of  the  States.  At  one 
moment  of  history  it  appeared  fatally  anti-human,  be¬ 
cause  it  remained  immutable  while  everything  was 
changing.  Its  brutality  has  been  exposed  by  the  Chris¬ 
tian  antisémites,  because  this  brutality  shocked  them  di¬ 
rectly,  but  in  saying,  “Kill  even  the  best  of  Goyim,” 
Rabbi  Simon  ben  Jochai  was  no  more  cruel  than  was 
Saint  Louis,  who  thought  that  the  best  way  of  arguing 
with  a  Jew  was  to  plunge  a  dirk  in  his  belly,  or  than  the 
Pope  Urban  III.  when  he  wrote  in  his  bull:  “Every¬ 
body  is  allowed  to  kill  an  excommunicate  if  it  is  done 
from  zeal  for  the  church.” 

One  thing,  besides,  has  to  be  taken  into  account.  Some 
modern  Jews  and  philosemites  have  rejected  with  horror 
those  aphorisms  and  axioms  that  had  been  national 


263 


aphorisms  and  axioms.  They  say  that  the  invectives 
against  the  goyim ,  the  Mineans,  were  directed  at  the 
Romans,  the  Hellenes,  the  Jewish  apostates,  but  they  were 
never  aimed  at  the  Christians.  There  is  a  great  deal  of 
truth  in  these  assertions,  but  there  is  also  a  great  deal 
of  error.  Indeed,  a  portion  of  the  prescriptions  against 
strangers,  prescriptions  that  were  the  work  of  the  Jews 
defending  their  national  spirit,  must  be  referred  to  the 
time  when  the  Jewish  nationality  was  menaced,  when 
the  Jewish  spirit  was  broken  in  by  the  Greek  spirit,  and 
when  Hellenic  influence  threatened  to  become  prepond¬ 
erant.  Maledictions  became  more  violent  afterwards, 
beginning  with  the  Roman  Wars;  everything  was  deemed 
permissible  against  the  oppressor,  every  kind  of  violence, 
of  hatred  was  extolled,  and  the  Talmud  but  echoed  these 
sentiments,  it  catalogued  the  precepts  and  words,  and  it 
perpetuated  them.  When  Judaism  was  fought  by  the 
rising  Christianity,  all  the  hatred  and  wrath  of  hired 
assassins,  patriots,  pious  people  turned  upon  the  Jews 
who  were  converting  themselves — the  Mineans.  When 
deserting  the  national  faith  they  deserted  the  battle 
against  Rome  and  the  enemy;  they  were  traitors  to 
their  country,  to  the  Jewish  religion;  they  lost  interest 
in  a  struggle  that  was  vital  for  Israel;  gathered  around 
their  new  temples  they  looked  with  an  eye  of  indiffer¬ 
ence  upon  the  fall  of  the  national  glory,  the  disappear¬ 
ance  of  their  autonomy,  and  not  only  did  they  not  fight 
against  the  she-wolf,  but  they  even  unnerved  the  cour¬ 
age  of  those  listening  to  them.  Against  them,  against 
these  anti-patriots,  formulas  of  malediction  were  drawn 
up  ;  the  Jews  placed  them  under  the  ban  of  their  society, 


264 


it  was  lawful  to  kill  them,  just  as  it  was  lawful  to  kill 
“the  best  of  goyim  Similar  exhortations  would  be  found 
at  all  periods  of  patriotic  struggles,  among  all  nations; 
the  proclamations  of  the  generals,  the  calls  to  arms  of  the 
tribunes  of  all  ages  contain  just  as  odious  formulas. 
When  the  French,  for  instance,  invaded  the  Palatinate, 
it  must  have  been  a  rule,  nay,  even  a  duty,  for  all  Ger¬ 
mans  to  say  :  “Death  even  to  the  best  of  Frenchmen  !” 
Similarly,  when  the  Germans,  in  their  turn,  entered 
France,  it  was  doubtless  the  Frenchman’s  turn  to  say: 
“Death  even  to  the  best  of  Germans  !”  It  is  cruel,  ex¬ 
ecrable  war  that  generates  these  sentiments,  and  anti- 
human  ferocity  manifests  itself  whenever  this  warrior 
spirit  is  awakened  by  the  circumstances.  It  is  further 
said  that  with  the  Jews  these  precepts  have  represented 
only  personal  opinions,  and  by  their  side  may  be  found 
moral  formulas  as  humane,  brotherly  and  as  full  of  com¬ 
passion  as  the  Christian  formulas.  This  is  true,  and 
in  the  spirit  of  the  Fathers  who  had  written  these  max¬ 
ims,  gathered  in  the  Pirke  Aboth /  these  humanitarian 
maxims  had  a  general  meaning,  but  the  Jew  of  the  Mid¬ 
dle  Ages  who  found  them  in  his  book  attributed  to  them 
a  restricted  meaning;  he  applied  them  to  those  of  his 
nation.  Why?  Because  this  book,  the  Talmud,  con¬ 
tained  also  egotistic,  cruel  and  nationalist  precepts  di¬ 
rected  against  strangers.  Preserved  in  this  book  of 
enormous  authority,  in  this  Talmud  which  to  the  Jew 
has  been  a  code,  an  expression  of  their  nationality,  which 
has  been  their  soul, — these  cruel  or  narrow-minded  as- 

1  Pirke  Aboth  (Traite  des  Principes),  with  a  French  trans¬ 
lation  and  notes  by  A.  Crehange  (Paris,  Durlacher). 


265 


sertions  have  acquired  at  least  a  moral  if  not  a  legal 
force.  The  Talmudist  Jew  who  found  them  attributed 
to  them  a  permanent  import,  he  applied  them  to  all  his 
enemies,  he  made  of  it  a  general  rule  toward  strangers 
to  his  faith,  his  law,  his  beliefs.  There  came  a  day  when 
the  J ew  had  but  one  enemy  in  Europe — the  Christian — 
who  persecuted,  hunted,  massacred,  burned,  martyrized 
him.  As  a  consequence  he  could  not  experience  any  very 
tender  feeling  toward  the  Christian,  the  more  so  that 
all  the  efforts  of  the  Christian  were  bent  on  destroying 
Judaism,  on  annihilating  the  religion  which  from  that 
time  on  constituted  the  Jewish  fatherland.  The  goy 
of  the  Maccabees,  the  Minean  of  the  doctors,  turned  into 
the  Christian,  and  to  the  Christian  all  the  words  of  fu¬ 
rious  hatred,  wrath  and  despair  found  in  the  book,  were 
applied.  To  the  Christian,  the  Jew  was  a  despicable 
being,  but  to  the  Jew  the  Christian  became  the  goy ,  the 
execrable  stranger,  who  fears  no  pollution,  who  mal¬ 
treats  the  elect  nation,  one  through  whom  Judah  suf¬ 
fers.  This  word  goy  comprehended  all  the  passions, 
scorns,  hatreds  of  persecuted  Israel — against  the 
stranger,  and  this  cruelty  of  the  Jews  toward  the  non- 
Jew  is  one  of  the  things  that  best  prove  how  long-lived 
the  idea  of  nationality  was  among  the  children  of  Jacob. 
They  have  always  believed  themselves  a  people.  Do 
they  still  believe  it  at  present? 

Among  the  Jews  who  receive  a  Talmudic  education, 
and  this  means  the  majority  of  the  Jews  in  Russia,  Po¬ 
land,  Galicia,  Hungary,  Bohemia  and  the  Orient,  the 
idea  of  nationality  is  still  as  alive  at  present  as  it  had 
been  during  the  Middle  Ages.  They  still  form  a  people 


266 


apart,  fixed,  rigid,  congealed  by  the  scrupulously  ob¬ 
served  rites,  by  the  unvarying  customs  and  the  manners  ; 
hostile  to  every  innovation,  to  every  change,  rebelling 
against  all  attempted  efforts  to  detalmudize  him.  In 
1854  the  rabbis  anathematized  the  Oriental  schools 
founded  by  French  Jews,  where  profane  sciences  were 
taught;  at  Jerusalem,  an  anathema  was  hurled,  in  1856, 
against  the  school  established  by  Doctor  Franckel.  In 
Russia  and  Galicia,  sects  like  those  of  the  New  Chas¬ 
sidim  are  still  opposing  all  attempts  made  to  civilize  the 
J ews.  In  all  these  countries  only  a  minority  escapes  the 
Talmudic  spirit,  but  the  mass  persists  in  its  isolation, 
and  however  great  its  abjection  and  its  humiliation,  it 
ever  holds  itself  the  chosen  people,  the  nation  of  God. 

This  intolerant  aversion  toward  the  stranger  has  dis¬ 
appeared  among  the  Western  Jews,  the  Jews  of  France, 
England,  Italy  and  a  great  portion  of  the  German  Jews.1 
The  Talmud  is  no  longer  read  by  these  Jews,  and  the 
Talmudic  ethics,  at  least  the  nationalist  ethics  of  the 
Talmud,  have  no  longer  any  hold  on  them.  They  no 
longer  observe  the  613  laws,  have  lost  their  fear  of  im¬ 
purity,  a  horror  which  the  Eastern  Jews  have  preserved  ; 
the  majority  no  longer  know  Hebrew;  they  have  for¬ 
gotten  the  meaning  of  the  antique  ceremonies;  they 
have  transformed  the  rabbinic  Judaism  into  a  religious 
rationalism  ;  they  have  given  up  the  familiar  observances, 
and  the  religious  exercise  has  been  reduced  by  them  to 
passing  several  hours  in  the  year  in  a  synagogue  listening 
to  hymns  they  no  longer  understand.  They  can’t  attach 
themselves  to  a  dogma,  a  symbol  ;  they  have  none  of  it  ; 


1 1  leave  apart  the  Polish  .Jews  of  Germany. 


267 


in  giving  np  the  Talmudic  practices  they  have  given  up 
what  made  their  unity,  that  which  contributed  to  form¬ 
ing  their  spirit.  The  Talmud  had  formed  the  Jewish 
nation  after  its  dispersion;  thanks  to  it,  individuals  of 
diverse  origin  had  constituted  a  people;  it  had  been  the 
mould  of  the  J ewish  soul,  the  creator  of  the  race  ;  it  and 
the  restrictive  laws  of  the  various  societies  have  modeled 
it.  It  appears  that  with  the  legislators  abolished,  the 
Talmud  left  in  disdain,  the  Jewish  nation  should  inevit¬ 
ably  have  died,  and  yet  the  Western  Jews  are  Jews  still. 
They  are  J ews,  because  they  have  kept  perennial  and  liv¬ 
ing  their  national  consciousness;  they  still  believe  they 
are  a  nation,  and, believing  that, they  preserve  themselves. 
When  the  Jew  ceases  to  have  the  national  consciousness 
he  disappears  ;  so  long  as  he  has  this  consciousness,  he 
continues  to  be.  He  has,  he  practices  his  religious  faith 
no  longer,  he  is  irreligious,  often  even  an  atheist,  but 
he  continues  to  be,  because  he  has  a  belief  in  his  race. 
He  has  kept  his  national  pride,  he  always  fancies  him¬ 
self  a  superior  individuality,  a  different  being  from  those 
surrounding  him,  and  this  conviction  prevents  him  from 
assimilating  himself,  for,  being  always  exclusive,  he' gen¬ 
erally  refuses  to  mix  through  marriage  with  the  peoples 
surrounding  him.  Modern  Judaism  claims  to  be  but  a 
religious  confession;  but  in  reality  it  is  an  ethnos  be¬ 
sides,  for  it  believes  it  is  that,  for  it  has  preserved  its 
prejudices,  egoism,  and  its  vanity  as  a  people — a  belief, 
prejudices,  egoism  and  vanity  which  make  it  appear  a 
stranger  to  the  peoples  in  whose  midst  it  exists,  and 
here  we  touch  upon  one  of  the  most  profound  causes  of 
antisemitism.  Antisemitism  is  one  of  the  ways  in  which 


268 


the  principle  of  nationalities  is  manifested. 

What  is  this  question  of  nationalities?  By  it  is  un¬ 
derstood  “the  movement  which  carries  certain  popula¬ 
tions,  of  the  same  origin  and  language,  but  constituting 
a  part  of  different  States, — to  unite  in  such  a  way  as 
to  make  a  single  political  body,  a  single  nation.”* 1 

Simultaneous]}''  with  proclaiming  the  rights  of  the 
the  land,  formerly  the  property  and  domain  of  the 
peoples  the  Revolution  overthrew  the  old  conception  of 
rule  and  dynasty  on  which  the  nations  were  founded; 
the  land,  formerly  the  property  and  domain  of  the 
kings,  now  became  the  domain  of  the  people  that  oc¬ 
cupied  them.  The  royal  government  in  itself  consti¬ 
tuted  the  national  unity, — the  representative,  constitu¬ 
tional  government  placed  that  unity  somewhere  else  :  in 
the  community  of  origin  and  language.  The  artificial 
bond  being  broken,  a  natural  bond  was  sought  for  ;  there 
have  been  efforts  on  the  part  of  nations  to  acquire  an 
individuality;  they  all  strove  for  the  unity  they  lacked. 
It  was  about  1840  that  nationalist  ideas  especially  mani¬ 
fested  themselves, they  began  the  work,  and  contemporary 
Europe  was  founded  through  them.  The  theory  of  a 
National  State  was  wrought  out  by  the  savants,  histor¬ 
ians,  philosophers,  poets  of  a  whole  generation.  “Every 
people  has  been  called  to  form  a  State,  has  a  right  to 
organize  into  a  State.  Mankind  is  made  up  of  peoples, 
the  world  must  be  divided  into  corresponding  nations. 
Each  people  is  a  State ,  each  State  a  national  body.”1 
This  theory,  these  ideas  became  mighty  and  irresistible 

1  Laveleye,  Le  Gouvernaient  dans  la  Démocratie,  v.  I,  p.  53 
(Paris,  1891). 

1  Bluntschli,  Théorie  generale  de  VEtat,  p.  84. 


2G9 


forces.  They  are  what  made  the  unity  of  Germany,  of 
Italy,  and  they  have  been  the  causes  of  irredentism  ;  they, 
too,  are  what  creates  separatism  in  Ireland  and  Austria, 
what  calls  forth  the  struggles  between  the  Magyars  and 
Slavs,  the  Chekhs  and  Germans.  On  these  ideas  of 
nationalities  Russia  and  Germany  have  been  and  are 
resting  to  make  up  their  empire,  Pangermanic  or  Pan- 
slavic  ;  and  is  not  this  Panslavism,  and  this  Pangerman- 
ism  what  agitates  the  East  of  Europe,  do  not  the  des¬ 
tinies  of  that  part  of  Europe  depend  on  this  remote  or 
near  clash  of  theirs  ? 

It  would  be  out  of  place  to  discuss  here  the  legitimacy 
or  illegitimacy  of  this  movement.  It  will  suffice  for  our 
purpose  merely  to  state  its  existence.  How  do  the  peo¬ 
ples  construe  this  tendency  into  unity  ?  In  two  ways  : 
either  by  uniting  under  the  same  government  all  in¬ 
dividuals  who  speak  the  national  language,  or  by  re¬ 
ducing  all  heterogeneous  elements  coexisting  in  the  na¬ 
tions,  for  the  benefit  of  one  of  these  elements  which  be¬ 
comes  preponderant  and  whose  characteristics  hence¬ 
forth  become  the  national  characteristics.  Thus  the 
Germans  have  endeavored  to  assimilate  the  Alsatians 
and  Poles;  the  Russians  compel  the  Poles  to  maintain 
the  Russian  universities  which  denationalize  them  ;  in 
Austria  the  Germans  try  to  absorb  the  Chekhs;  in 
Hungary,  “Slovak  orphans  are  taken  from  the  places 
where  their  native  tongue  is  spoken  and  removed  to 
Magyar  comitats.”1  If  these  heterogeneous  elements  do 
not  let  themselves  be  absorbed,  there  comes  a  struggle, 
a  violent  struggle  often,  which  is  manifested  in  many 


1  J.  Novicow,  Les  luttes  entre  sociétés  humaines,  Paris,  1893. 


270 


varions  ways — from  persecution  down  to  expulsion  in 
some  cases. 

Now,  in  the  midst  of  the  European  nations  the  Jews 
live  as  a  confessional  community,  believing  in  the  lat¬ 
ter’s  nationality,  having  preserved  a  peculiar  type,  spe¬ 
cial  aptitudes  and  a  spirit  of  their  own.  In  their  strug¬ 
gle  against  the  heterogeneous  elements  which  they  con¬ 
tained,  the  nations  were  led  to  struggle  against  the  Jews, 
and  antisemitism  was  one  of  the  manifestations  of  the 
effort  made  by  the  peoples  in  order  to  reduce  these 
strange  individualities. 

To  be  reduced,  these  individualities  must  be  absorbed 
or  eliminated,  and  the  process  of  social  reduction  does 
not  differ  perceptibly  from  the  process  of  physiological 
reduction.  In  the  beginning,  when  heterogeneous  hu¬ 
man  bands  covered  the  earth,  they  began  to  struggle 
for  existence  and  did  not  think  it  possible  to  develop 
unless  by  suppressing  the  stranger  who  existed  by  their 
side.  Cannibalism  is  the  first  degree  of  elmination. 
When  the  nations  were  formed  by  the  fusion  and 
homogeneization  of  heterogeneous  hordes,  they  tended 
rather  to  absorb  the  stranger,  although  the  tendency 
toward  elimination  still  existed.  Having  reached  a 
certain  stage  of  development,  the  primitive  societies 
came  to  aim  at  isolation,  exclusivism,  mutual  hatred; 
while  in  the  process  of  formation  these  national  charac¬ 
teristics  thus  escaped  all  shocks,  all  changes,  and  exclu¬ 
siveness  was,  perhaps,  indispensable  for  a  certain  time, 
in  order  that  types  might  be  formed.  When  these  types 
were  solidly  formed,  it  became  useful  to  add  new  cells 
to  the  original  aggregate  owing  to  the  danger  that  this 


271 


aggregate  might  crystallize  and  immobilize,  as  hap¬ 
pened  in  certain  cases.  Accordingly,  the  stranger  was 
allowed  to  enter  the  nation,  but  this  was  allowed  with 
great  precautions  by  surrounding  the  naturalization  and 
adoption  with  a  thousand  regulations,  and  whoever 
wished  to  remain  a  stranger  in  society  was  placed  under 
very  annoying  restrictions.  The  laws  were  very  hard  on 
those  who  were  not  nationalists.  The  Jewish  law  is 
charged  with  being  merciless  toward  the  non- Jew,  but 
the  Roman  law  was  not  tender  with  the  non-Roman,  who 
was  without  rights  as  the  non-Greek  was  in  Athens  and 
Sparta.  Even  to-day  national  exclusivism  or  egoism  is 
manifested  in  the  same  way,  it  is  still  as  alive  as  was 
the  family  egoism  of  which  it  is  but  an  extension.  It 
may  even  be  said  that  by  a  kind  of  regression  it  is  ac¬ 
tually  asserting  itself  with  more  force.  Every  nation 
seemingly  wants  to  rear  around  itself  a  Chinese  wall, 
there  is  talk  of  preserving  the  national  patrimony,  the 
national  soul,  the  national  spirit,  and  the  word  guest  re¬ 
gains  in  contemporary  civilizations  the  same  meaning  as 
it  had  acquired  in  Roman  law:  the  meaning  of  hostis , 
enemy.  The  economic  and  political  rights  of  the  immi¬ 
grant  are  being  restricted  in  every  possible  way.  There 
is  opposition  to  immigration,  strangers  are  even  ex¬ 
pelled  when  their  number  grows  too  great,  they  are  con¬ 
sidered  a  menace  to  the  national  culture  which  they 
modify;  no  account  is  taken  of  the  fact  that  therein  lies 
a  life  condition  of  this  very  culture.  It  means  that  we 
live  at  a  period  of  changes  and  that  the  future  does  not 
open  quite  clearly  before  the  peoples.  Many  people  are 
troubled  about  the  future;  they  are  attached  to  the  old 


272 


customs,  in  every  transformation  they  see  the  death  of 
the  society  of  which  they  are  a  part,  and  as  conservatives 
opposed  to  this  transformation  they  deeply  hate  what¬ 
ever  is  likely  to  bring  a  modification,  everything  that  is 
different  from  them,  i.  e .,  the  strange. 

To  these  nationalist  egoists,  to  these  exclusivists,  the 
Jews  appeared  a  danger,  because  they  felt  that  the  Jews 
were  still  a  people,  a  people  whose  mentality  did  not 
agree  with  the  national  mentality,  whose  concepts  were 
opposed  to  that  ensemble  of  social,  moral,  psychological, 
and  intellectual  conceptions,  which  constitutes  nation¬ 
ality.  For  this  reason  the  exclusivists  became  antisém¬ 
ites,  because  they  could  reproach  the  Jews  with  an  ex- 
clusivism  exactly  as  uncompromising  as  theirs,  and 
every  antisemitic  effort  tends,  as  we  have  seen  already,1 
to  restore  those  ancient  laws  restricting  the  rights  of  the 
Jews  who  are  considered  strangers.  Thus  is  realized  this 
fundamental  and  everlasting  contradiction  of  national¬ 
ist  antisemitism:  antisemitism  was  born  in  modern  so¬ 
cieties,  because  the  Jew  did  not  assimilate  himself,  did 
not  cease  to  be  a  people,  but  when  antisemitism  had  as¬ 
certained  that  the  Jew  was  not  assimilated,  it  violently 
reproached  him  for  it,  and  at  the  same  whenever  pos¬ 
sible  it  took  all  necessary  measures  to  prevent  his  assim¬ 
ilation  in  the  future. 

At  all  events,  there  exist  contrary,  opposing  tendencies 
by  the  side  of  these  nationalist  tendencies.  Above  na¬ 
tionalities  there  is  mankind;  now,  this  mankind,  so 
fragmental  at  the  start,  composed  of  thousands  of  in¬ 
imical  tribes  that  were  devouring  one  another,  is  be- 


1  Ch.  ix. 


273 


coming  a  very  homogeneous  mankind.  The  different 
peoples  possess  a  common  ground,  despite  their  differ¬ 
ences;  a  general  conscience  is  formed  above  all  the 
national  consciences;  formerly  there  had  been  civiliza¬ 
tions,  now  we  advance  towards  one  civilization ;  once 
upon  a  time  Athens  resisted  its  neighbor  Sparta;  from 
now  on,  even  if  dissimilarities  between  one  nation  and 
another  persist,  the  similarities  are  accentuated.  As 
by  the  side  of  his  special  qualities  constituting  his  es¬ 
sence  and  personality,  each  individual  in  a  nation  pos¬ 
sesses  qualities  in  common  with  those  who  speak  the 
same  tongue  and  have  the  same  interests  as  he,  just  so 
civilized  mankind  acquires  similar  characteristics, 
though  each  nation  preserves  its  physiognomy.  More 
frequent  from  day  to  day,  the  relations  among  the  peo¬ 
ples  bring  on  a  more  intimate  communion.  Science,  art, 
literature,  become  more  and  more  cosmopolitan.  Hu- 
manitarianism  takes  its  place  by  the  side  of  patriotism, 
internationalism  by  the  side  of  nationalism,  and  pres¬ 
ently  the  idea  of  mankind  will  acquire  more  force  than 
the  idea  of  fatherland,  which  is  being  modified  and  is 
losing  some  of  that  exclusivism  which  the  national 
egoists  wish  to  perpetuate.  Hence  the  antagonism  be¬ 
tween  the  two  tendencies.  To  internationalism,  which 
is  already  so  powerful,  patriotism  is  opposed  with  un¬ 
heard  of  violence.  The  old  conservative  spirit  is  elated  ; 
it  is  in  training  against  cosmopolitanism  which  will 
some  day  defeat  it;  it  fiercely  fights  those  who  are  in 
favor  of  cosmopolitanism,  and  this  is  again  a  cause  of 
antisemitism. 

Though  often  exceedingly  chauvinist,  the  Jews  are 


274 


essentially  cosmopolitan  in  character;  they  are  the  cos¬ 
mopolitan  element  of  mankind,  says  Schaeffle.  This  is 
quite  true,  since  they  have  always  possessed  in  a  high 
degree  that  mark  of  cosmopolitanism — the  extreme 
facility  of  adaptation.  On  their  arrival  into  the  Prom¬ 
ised  Land  they  adopted  the  language  of  Canaan;  after 
a  seventy  year  sojourn  in  Babylonia,  they  forgot  Hebrew 
and  re-entered  J erusalem,  speaking  an  Aramaic  or  Chal¬ 
dee  jargon;  during  the  first  century  before  and  after  the 
Christian  era,  the  Hellenic  tongue  pervaded  the  Jewries. 
Once  dispersed  the  Jews  fatally  became  cosmopolites. 
Indeed  they  did  not  again  attach  themselves  to  any  ter¬ 
ritorial  unit,  and  have  had  only  a  religious  unity.  True, 
they  have  had  a  fatherland,  but  this  fatherland,  the 
most  beautiful  of  all,  as,  however,  every  fatherland  is, 
was  placed  in  the  future,  it  was  Zion  renewed,  with 
which  no  land  is  compared  or  camparable;  a  spiritual 
fatherland  which  they  loved  so  ardently  that  they  be¬ 
came  indifferent  to  every  land,  and  that  every  land 
seemed  to  them  equally  good  or  equally  bad.  Finally 
they  lived  under  such  and  so  terrible  circumstances  that 
they  could  not  be  expected  to  have  a  fatherland  of  their 
choice,  and,  with  the  aid  of  their  instinct  of  solidarity, 
they  have  remained  internationalists. 

The  nationalists  have  been  led  to  consider  them  as  the 
most  active  propagators  of  the  ideas  of  internationalism  ; 
they  even  found  that  the  example  alone  of  these  country¬ 
less  laymen  was  bad,  and  that  by  their  presence  they  un¬ 
dermined  the  idea  of  fatherland,  that  is  any  special  idea 
of  fatherland.  For  this  reason  they  became  antisémites 
or  rather  for  this  reason  their  antisemitism  took  on 


275 


added  force.  They  not  only  accused  the  Jews  of  being 
strangers,  but  even  destructive  strangers.  The  conser¬ 
vatism  of  the  exclusivists  connected  cosmopolitanism 
with  revolution;  it  upbraided  the  Jews  first  for  their 
cosmopolitanism,  and  then  for  their  revolutionary  spirit 
and  activity.  Has  the  Jew,  indeed,  any  leaning  toward 
revolution  ?  We  shall  examine  that. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

THE  REVOLUTIONARY  SPIRIT  IN  JUDAISM. 

Communism  and  Revolution. — The  Jewish  Agitation. — 
The  Optimism  and  Eudaemonism  of  Israel. — The 
Theories  of  Life  and  Death. — Immortality  of  the 
Soul  and  Resignation. — Materialism  and  Hatred  of 
Injustice. — The  Contract  Idea  in  Jewish  Theology. 
— The  Idea  of  Justice. — The  Prophets  and  Justice. 
— The  Return  from  Babylon,  the  Ebionim  and  the 
Anavim. — The  Conception  of  Divinity. — Divine 
Authority  and  Government  on  Earth. — The  Zealots 
and  Anarchism. — Human  Equality. — The  Rich 
Man  and  Evil. — The  Poor  Man  and  Good. — Yah- 
wehism  and  Liberty. — Free  Will,  Human  Reason 
.and  Divine  Power. — Jewish  Individualism. — Jew¬ 
ish  Subjectivity  and  the  Feeling  of  Self. — Hebraic 
Idealism. — The  Idea  of  Justice,  the  Idea  of  Equal¬ 
ity,  the  Idea  of  Liberty,  and  Their  Possible  Re¬ 
alization. — Messianic  Times. — The  Messiah  and 
Revolution. — The  Revolutionary  Instinct  and  Tal¬ 
mudism. — The  Modern  Jews  and  Revolution. 


276 


To  inquire  into  the  revolutionary  tendencies  of  Ju¬ 
daism  does  not  mean  to  examine  Jewish  Communism. 
Moreover,  from  the  fact  that  the  so-called  Mosaic  insti¬ 
tutions  had  been  inspired  by  socialistic  principles  it 
should  not  necessarily  be  inferred  that  the  revolutionary 
spirit  has  always  guided  Israel. 

Communism  and  revolution  are  not  inseparable  terms, 
and  if  nowadays  we  cannot  utter  the  first  word  without 
fatally  evoking  the  other, — this  is  due  to  the  economic 
conditions  governing  us  and  .to  the  fact  that 
the  transformation  of  the  present-day  societies,  based 
as  they  are  on  individual  property,  is  considered  impos¬ 
sible  without  a  violent  tearing  up.  In  a  capitalistic  State 
the  communist  is  looked  upon  as  a  revolutionist,  but  it 
is  not  taken  into  account  that  a  partisan  of  private 
capital  would  be  treated  in  similar  fashion  in  a  commun¬ 
istic  State.  In  the  one  and  the  other  case  this  concep¬ 
tion  would  be  correct,  for  communist  or  individualist 
would  in  turn  display  both  discontent  and  desire  for 
change,  and  that  is  the  characteristic  of  the  revolution¬ 
ary  spirit. 

If  it  can  be  said,  with  Renan,  of  the  Jews  that  they 
have  been  an  element  of  progress  or  at  least  of  transfor¬ 
mation,  if  they  could  be  regarded  as  the  ferments  of 
revolution,  and  that,  too,  at  all  times,  we  shall  see,  it 
is  not  because  of  these  laws  on  gleaning,  on  the 
workmen’s  wages,  on  the  sabbatic  and  jubilee  years, 
which  are  found  in  the  Exodus,  Numbers,  Leviticus, 
ets.,1  but  because  they  have  always  been  malcontents. 

I  do  not  mean  to  claim  thereby  that  they  were  mere 


1  Leviticus,  xix,  xxv  ;  Exodus,  xxii  ;  Numbers,  xxv. 


277 


mudslingers  and  systematic  opponents  of  all  govern¬ 
ment,  for  they  were  not  wrought  up  against  an  Ahab  or 
Ahaziah  only, — but  the  state  of  things  did  not  satisfy 
them  ;  they  were  forever  restless,  in  the  expectation  of  a 
better  state  which  they  never  found  realized.  Their 
ideal  not  being  one  of  those  which  are  satisfied  with 
hope — they  had  not  placed  it  high  enough  for  that — 
they  never  could  lull  their  ambitions  with  dreams  and 
phantoms.  They  thought  they  had  a  right  to  demand 
immediate  satisfactions  and  not  remote  promises.  Hence 
this  constant  agitation  of  the  Jews,  which  had  mani¬ 
fested  itself  not  only  in  prophetism,  Messianism  and 
Christianity  that  was  its  supreme  consummation,  but 
as  well  since  the  time  of  the  dispersion,  and  then  in  an 
individual  manner. 

The  causes  that  gave  birth  to  this  agitation,  which 
kept  it  up  and  perpetuated  it  in  the  souls  of  some  mod¬ 
ern  Jews,  are  not  external  causes  such  as  the  tyranny 
of  a  ruler,  of  a  people  or  ferocious  code;  they  are 
internal  causes,  i.  e.,  such  as  pertain  to  the  very  essence 
of  the  Hebrew  spirit.  The  reasons  of  the  sentiments  of 
revolt  with  which  the  Jews  were  animated  must  be 
sought  in  the  idea  they  had  of  God,  in  their  conception 
of  life  and  death. 

To  Israel,  life  is  a  boon,  the  existence  granted  to  man 
by  God  is  good  ;  to  live  is  in  itself  good  luck.  When,  in 
a  strait  moment,  the  Ecclesiastes1  declared  that  the  day 
of  death  was  preferable  to  that  of  birth,  he  was  troubled 
by  Hellenic  thought,  and  his  aphorism  had  but  an  in¬ 
dividual  value.  According  to  the  Hebrew,  life  must 


1  Eccles.  vii,  3. 


278 


give  a  being  all  the  joys  and  only  from  it  they  must  be 
expected. 

By  contrast,  death  is  the  only  evil  that  can  afflict  man, 
it  is  the  greatest  of  calamities;  it  is  so  horrible,  so 
frightful  that  to  be  struck  by  it  is  the  most  terrible  of 
punishments.  “May  death  serve  me  as  expiation,”  the 
dying  would  say,  for  he  could  not  conceive  of  a  more 
serious  punishment  than  that  consisting  in  death.  The 
only  recompense  that  the  pious  earnestly  desired  was  that 
Yahweh  might  make  them  die  sated  with  days,  after 
years  passed  in  abundance  and  jubilation. 

Besides,  what  recompense  other  than  this  could  they 
have  expected  ?  They  did  not  believe  in  the  future  life, 
and  it  was  late,  perhaps  only  under  the  influence  of 
Parsism,  that  they  began  to  admire  the  immortality  of 
the  soul.  For  a  Jew,  his  existence  ended  with  life,  he 
was  sleeping  till  the  day  of  resurrection,  he  had  nothing 
to  hope  for  except  from  existence,  and  the  punishments 
that  threatened  vice,  just  as  the  satisfactions  that  accom¬ 
panied  virtue,  were  all  of  this  world. 

The  philosophy  of  the  Jew,  or  more  properly  speaking, 
his  eudaemonism,  was  simple  ;  he  says  with  the  Ecclesias¬ 
tes.  “I  have  found  out  that  there  is  happiness  in  rejoicing 
only  and  in  giving  one’s  self  comforts  during  life.”1  A 
realist,  therefore,  he  sought  to  develop  himself  to  the 
best  of  his  desires  ;  having  but  a  limited  number  of  years 
allotted  to  him,  he  wanted  to  enjoy  it,  and  he  demanded 
not  moral  pleasures,  but  material  pleasures,  suitable  to 
embellish,  to  make  comfortable  the  existence.  As  there 
was  no  paradise,  he  could  expect  only  tangible  favors 


1  Eccles.  iii,  12. 


279 


from  God,  in  return  for  his  fidelity,  his  piety  ;  not  vague 
promises,  good  for  those  seeking  beyond,  but  formal 
realizations,  resulting  in  an  increase  of  fortune,  an 
augmentation  of  well-being.  If  the  Jew  saw  himself 
defrauded  of  the  advantages  he  thought  were  due  his  at¬ 
tachment,  his  soul  was  profoundly  disturbed;  with  Job 
he  preferred  to  believe  he  had  sinned  unknowingly,  and 
that  having  made  him  expiate  his  errors  by  poverty 
Yahweh  would  treat  him  like  that  very  Job  to  whom 
was  granted  “the  double  of  whatever  he  had  possessed.”2 

Having  no  hope  of  future  reward  the  Jew  could  not 
resign  to  the  misfortunes  of  life;  it  was  only  at  a  very 
late  date  that  he  could  console  himself  in  his  misfortunes 
by  dreaming  of  celestial  happiness.  To  the  scourges 
befalling  him  he  replied  neither  with  the  Moham¬ 
medan’s  fatalism,  nor  with  the  Christian’s  resignation, 
but  with  revolt.  As  he  possessed  a  concrete  ideal,  he 
wanted  to  realize  it,  and  whatever  retarded  its  advent 
aroused  his  wrath. 

The  peoples  that  believed  in  a  world  beyond,  those 
who  deluded  themselves  with  sweet  and  consoling 
chimaeras  and  let  themselves  be  lulled  to  sleep  with  the 
dream  of  eternity;  those  that  possessed  the  dogma  of 
rewards  and  punishments,  of  paradise  and  hell,  all  these 
peoples  accepted  poverty  and  sickness  with  bowed  heads. 
The  dream  of  future  rejoicing  kept  them  up,  and  with¬ 
out  anger  they  put  up  with  their  sores  and  their  priva¬ 
tion.  They  consoled  themselves  of  the  injustices  of 
this  world  by  thinking  of  the  mirth  that  would  be  their 


2  Job,  xlii.  10, 


280 


dise  pleasures,  they  consented  to  bend,  without  com¬ 
plaint,  before  the  strong  who  tyrannized  them. 

“The  hatred  of  injustice  is  strikingly  diminished 
through  the  assurance  of  rev/ards  beyond  the  grave/'’ 
says  Ernest  Renan.  Indeed,  to  him  who  believes  in  the 
life  eternal  during  which  immutable  and  sovereign  jus¬ 
tice  shall  reign,  of  what  import  are  these  short  earthly 
iniquities  from  which  death  gives  release?  The  faith 
in  the  immortality  of  the  soul  is  a  counselor  of  resig- 
lot  in  the  other  world;  in  the  expectation  of  the  para- 
nation  ;  this  is  so  true,  that  the  uncompromising  attitude 
of  the  Jew  subsides  as  the  belief  in  eternity  grows 
stronger  in  Israel. 

But  this  idea  of  the  continuity  and  persistence  of  the 
personality  contributed  nothing  to  the  formation  of  the 
moral  being  with  the  Jews.  In  earliest  times  they  did 
not  share  the  hopes  of  the  later  Pharisees  ;  after  Yahweh 
had  closed  their  eyelids,  they  expected  only  the  horror  of 
Sheol.  Accordingly,  life  was  for  them  the  important 
thing  ;  they  sought  to  beautify  it  with  all  blessings,  and 
these  mad  idealists,  who  had  conceived  the  pure  idea  of 
one  God,  were,  by  a  startling  yet  explicable  contrast,  the 
most  untractable  of  sensualists.  Yahweh  had  assigned 
to  them  a  certain  number  of  years  on  earth;  in  this  ex¬ 
istence,  always  too  short  to  suit  the  Hebrew,  He  de¬ 
manded  of  them  a  faithful  and  scrupulous  worship;  in 
return,  the  Hebrew  claimed  positive  advantages  from  his 
Lord. 

The  idea  of  contract  dominated  the  whole  of  Jewish 
theology.  When  the  Israelite  fulfilled  his  duties  toward 
Yahweh,  he  demanded  reciprocity.  If  he  thought  himself 


281 


wronged,  if  he  considered  his  rights  had  not  been  re¬ 
spected,  he  had  no  good  reason  to  temporize,  for  the 
minute  of  happiness  he  lost  was  a  minute  stolen  from 
him,  one  which  could  never  be  returned  to  him.  Ac¬ 
cordingly,  he  looked  to  a  punctual  fulfilment  of  mutual 
obligations;  he  wanted  a  correct  balance  to  exist  be¬ 
tween  his  God  and  himself;  he  kept  a  strict  account  of 
his  duties  and  his  rights,  this  account  was  part  of  the 
religion,  and  Spinoza  could  justly  say:1  “With  the  Jews 
the  religious  dogmas  did  not  consist  in  instructions,  but 
in  rights  and  prescriptions  ;  piety  meant  justice,  im¬ 
piety  meant  injustice  and  crime. ” 

The  man  whom  the  Jew  lauds  is  not  a  saint,  not  a 
resignee  :  it  is  the  just  man.  The  charitable  man  does 
not  exist  for  those  of  Judah’s  people;  in  Israel  there 
can  be  no  question  of  charity,  but  only  of  justice  :  alms 
is  but  a  restitution.  Besides,  what  did  Yahweh  sav? 
He  has  said  :  “Just  balances,  just  weights,  a  just  ephah , 
and  a  just  Jiin  shall  ye  have;”1  he  has  also  said:  “Thou 
shalt  not  respect  the  person  of  the  poor,  nor  honor  the 
person  of  the  mighty;  but  in  righteousness  shalt  thou 
judge  thy  neighbor.”2 

From  this  conception  of  the  primitive  times  of  Israel 
came  the  law  of  retaliation.  Simple  spirits,  imbued 
with  the  idea  of  justice,  were  obviously  bound  to  come 
to  :  “An  eye  for  an  eye,  a  tooth  for  a  tooth.”  The  rigor  of 
the  code  softened  only  then  when  a  more  exact  idea  of 
equity  was  obtained. 

1  Tract.  Theolog.  Polit.,  chap.  xvii. 

2  Levit.,  xix,  15. 

1  Levit.,  xix.  36. 


282 


The  Yahwehism  of  the  prophets  reflects  these  senti¬ 
ments.  What  the  God  they  praise  wants  is  :  “Let  judg¬ 
ment  run  down  as  waters  and  righteousness  as  a  mighty 
stream  ;”3  he  says  :  “I  am  the  Lord  which  exercise  lov¬ 
ingkindness,  judgment  and  righteousness  in  the  earth; 
for  in  these  things  I  delight.”4  To  know  justice  is  to 
know  God,* 1  and  justice  becomes  an  emanation  from 
divinity;  it  takes  on  the  character  of  a  revelation.  With 
Isaiah,  Jeremiah,  Ezekiel  it  formed  part  of  the  dogma,  it 
had  been  proclaimed  during  the  Sinaitic  theophanies, 
and  little  by  little  is  born  this  idea  :  Israel  must  realize 
justice. 

This  desire  guides  all  great  prophets  before  and  during 
the  captivity.  Should  the  elect  people  not  practice  jus¬ 
tice  it  will  be  punished  for  it  as  for  its  idolatry.  If  it 
is  led  into  captivity  it  is  not  simply  because  it  had  wor¬ 
shipped  Ashera  and  Kamosh,  had  sacrificed  on  high 
places,  had  disgraced  the  sanctuary,  but  as  well  because 
it  is  rotten  with  iniquity. 

All  prophetic  schools  were  imbued  with  these  thoughts. 
The  prophets  believed  themselves  sent  to  work  for  the 
advent  of  justice.  Obviously,  what  struck  them  most 
was  the  inequality  in  conditions.  As  long  as  there 
would  be  poor  and  rich,  there  would  be  no  hope  for  the 
reign  of  equity.  According  to  the  inspired  nabis  (proph¬ 
ets)  the  rich  were  a  hindrance  to  justice  and  this  latter 
was  to  be  brought  about  only  by  the  poor.  Accordingly 
the  anavim  and  ebionim  (the  afflicted  and  the  poor) 


a  Amos,  v,  24. 

4  Jeremiah,  ix.  24. 

1  Jeremiah,  xxii,  15-1G. 


283 


gathered  around  their  protectors,  the  prophets.  With 
them  they  protested  against  the  extortions  ;  in  return,  the 
prophets  presented  them  as  models,  and  from  them 
drew  the  portrait  of  the  just  man  :  “The  just  is  he  that 
walketh  righteously  and  speaketh  uprightly;  he  that 
despiseth  the  gain  of  oppressions,  that  shaketh  his  hand 
from  holding  of  bribes,  that  stoppeth  his  ears  from  hear¬ 
ing  of  blood,  and  shutteth  his  eyes  from  seeing  evil.”1 
They  pointed  out  their  duties  to  the  rich  and  said  in  the 
name  of  Yahweh:  “Is  not  this  the  fast  I  have  chosen? 
to  loose  the  bands  of  wickedness,  to  undo  the  heavy  bur¬ 
dens,  and  to  let  the  oppressed  go  free,  and  that  ye  break 
every  yoke?  Is  it  not  to  deal  thy  bread  to  the  hungry, 
and  that  thou  bring  the  poor  that  are  cast  out  to  thy 
house  ?”2 

On  returning  from  Babylon,  the  Jewish  population 
formed  a  considerable  nucleus  of  poor ,  just ,  pious, 
humble,  and  saints.  A  great  portion  of  the  Psalms  came 
from  this  midst.  These  Psalms  are  for  the  most  part 
violent  diatribes  against  the  rich;  they  symbolize  the 
struggle  of  the  ebionim  against  the  mighty.  When  ad¬ 
dressing  the  possessors,  the  sated,  the  Psalmists  readily 
say  with  Amos  :  “Hear  this,  0  ye  that  swallow  up  the 
needy,  even  to  make  the  poor  of  the  land  to  fail,”3  and 
in  all  these  poems  written  between  the  Babylonian  exile 
and  the  Maccabees  (589-167)  the  poor  is  glorified.  He 
is  God’s  friend,  His  prophet,  His  anointed;  he  is  good. 


4  Isaiah,  xxxiii,  15. 

*  Isaiah,  lviii,  6-7. 

•  Amos,  viii,  4. 


284 


his  hands  are  pure;  he  is  upright  and  just;  he  is  part  of 
the  flock  of  which  God  is  the  shepherd. 

The  rich  is  the  wicked,  he  is  the  man  of  violence  and 
blood;  he  is  knavish,  perfidious,  haughty;  he  does  evil 
without  motive;  he  is  contemptible,  for  he  exploits,  op¬ 
presses,  persecutes  and  devours  the  poor.  But  his  great 
crime  is  that  he  does  not  do  justice;  that  he  has  bribed 
judges  wrho  condemn  the  poor  beforehand.1 

Incited  by  the  words  of  their  poets,  the  ebionim  did 
not  slumber  in  their  misery,  they  did  not  delight  in  their 
misfortunes,  they  did  not  resign  to  poverty.  On  the  con- 
traty,  they  dreamed  of  the  day  that  would  avenge  the 
iniquities  and  oprobriums  heaped  upon  them,  the  day 
when  the  wicked  would  be  hurled  down  and  the  just 
exalted:  the  day  of  the  Messiah.  For  all  these  humble 
ones  the  Messianic  era  was  to  be  an  era  of  justice.  Did 
not  Isaiah  speak  of  this  time  when  he  said  :  “I  wdll  also 
make  thy  officers  peace,  and  thine  exactors  righteousness. 
Violence  shall  no  more  be  heard  in  thy  land.  And  they 
shall  build  houses,  and  inhabit  them;  and  they  shall 
plant  vineyards,  and  eat  the  fruit  of  them.  They  shall 
not  build,  and  another  inhabit  ;  they  shall  not  plant  and 
another  eat.” 

When  Jesus  comes  he  will  repeat  what  the  ebionim 
Psalmists  had  said,  he  will  say  :  “Blessed  are  they  which 
do  hunger  and  thirst  after  righteousness,  for  they  shall 
be  filled;”3  he  will  anathematize  the  rich,  and  will  ex¬ 
claim:  “It  is  easier  for  a  camel  to  go  through  the  eye 

1  Psalms,  xxvi,  10  ;  lxxxii,  2-3  ;  xxii  ;  xlviii  ;  xlix  ;  cii,  1,  2  ; 
cvii,  etc. 

8  Matth.,  v,  6. 


—  285 


of  a  needle  than  for  a  rich  man  to  enter  the  Kingdom  of 
God."* 1  On  this  point  the  Christian  doctrine  will  turn 
out  to  be  purely  Jewish,  not  at  all  Hellenic,  and  Jesus 
will  find  his  first  adherents  among  the  ebionim. 

Thus  the  conception  the  J ews  formed  of  life  and  death 
furnished  the  first  element  of  their  revolutionary  spirit. 
Starting  with  the  idea  that  good,  that  is  justice,  was  to 
be  realized  not  beyond  the  grave — for  beyond  the  grave 
there  is  sleep,  until  the  day  of  the  resurrection  of  the 
dead, — but  during  life,  they  sought  justice,  and  never 
finding  it,  ever  dissatisfied,  they  were  restless  to  get  it. 

The  second  element  was  given  them  by  their  concep¬ 
tion  of  divinity.  It  led  them  to  conceive  the  equality  of 
men,  it  led  them  even  to  anarchy  ;  a  theoretic  and  senti¬ 
mental  anarchy,  since  they  always  had  a  government,  but 
a  real  anarchy,  for  they  never  accepted  with  cheerful 
heart  this  government,  whatever  it  were. 

Whether  worshipping  Yahweh  as  their  national  God, 
or  when  they  rose  with  their  prophets  to  the  belief  in  one 
and  universal  God,  the  Jews  never  speculated  over  the 
essence  of  Divinity.  Judaism  never  set  for  itself  any 
essential  metaphysical  questions,  whether  about  the  “be¬ 
yond”  or  the  nature  of  God.  “Sublime  speculations 
have  no  connection  with  the  Scripture,”  says  Spinoza, 
“and,  as  far  as  I  am  concerned,  I  have  not  and  could  not 
learn,  from  the  Holy  Writ,  any  of  the  eternal  attributes 
of  God”;1  and  Mendelssohn  adds:  “Judaism  has  not  re¬ 
vealed  unto  us  any  of  the  eternal  truths.”2 


1  Mark,  x,  25. 

1  Spinoza,  Letters,  xxxiv. 

*  Mendelssohn,  Jerusalem . 


286 


The  Jews  looked  upon  Yahweh  as  a  ceiostial  monarch, 
who  would  give  a  charter  to  his  people  and  enter  into 
engagements  with  it,  demanding,  in  return,  obedience  to 
his  laws  and  prescriptions.  In  the  eyes  of  the  ancient 
Hebrews  and,  later  on,  the  Talmudists,  the  Bene-Israel 
alone  could  enjoy  the  prerogatives  granted  by  Yah¬ 
weh;  in  the  eyes  of  the  prophets,  all  nations  could  law¬ 
fully  claim  these  privileges,  because  Yahweh  was  the  God 
Universal,  and  not  the  equal  of  Dagon  or  Beelzebub. 

But  Yahweh  was  “the  supreme  head  of  the  Hebrew 
people”  ;3  He  was  the  all-powerful  and  formidable  lord, 
the  only  king,  jealous  of  His  authority,  cruelly  punish¬ 
ing  those  who  showed  themselves  rebellious  against  His 
omnipotence.  In  good  luck,  as  in  ill-luck,  a  pious  Jew 
had  ever  to  have  recourse  to  Him.  To  turn  to  men  and 
not  to  God  Yahweh  was  a  crime,  and  having  made  an 
alliance  with  Rome  and  Mithridates  I.,  Judas  Macca- 
baeus  incurred  this  anathema  of  Rabbi  José,  son  of  Jo- 
hanan  :  “Accursed  be  he  who  places  his  reliance  in  crea¬ 
tures  of  flesh  and  who  removes  his  heart  from  Yahweh  !” 
Yahweh  is  thy  fort,  thy  shield,  thy  citadel,  thy  hope,  say 
the  Psalms. 

All  Jews  are  Yahwelfls  subjects;  He  has  said  it  Him¬ 
self  :  “For  unto  me  the  children  of  Israel  are  servants.”* 1 
What  authority  can,  then,  prevail  by  the  side  of  the 
divine  authority?  All  government,  whatever  it  be,  is 
evil,  since  it  tends  to  take  the  place  of  the  government  of 
God;  it  must  be  fought  against,  because  Yahweh  is  the 


*  Munk,  Palestine. 

1  Levit.,  xxv,  55. 


287 


only  head  of  the  Jewish  commonwealth,  the  only  one  to 
whom  the  Israelite  owes  obedience. 

When  insulting  the  Kings,  the  prophets  represented 
the  sentiment  of  Israel.  They  were  giving  expression  to 
the  thoughts  of  the  poor,  the  humble,  all  those  who,  being 
directly  ill-used  by  the  power  of  the  Kings  or  of  the  rich, 
were  more  inclined,  for  that  very  reason,  to  criticize  or 
deny  the  good  coming  from  this  tyranny. 

Holding  Yahweh  alone  as  their  lord,  these  anavim  and 
ebionim ,  were  ever  driven  to  revolt  against  human 
magistracy  ;  they  could  not  accept  it,  and  during  the  per¬ 
iods  of  uprising  Zadok  and  Judah  the  Galilean  were  seen 
carrying  with  them  the  zealots  by  their  cry  :  “Call  none 
your  master!”  Zadok  and  Judah  were  logical:  if  we 
place  our  tyrant  in  heavens  we  cannot  endure  one  down 
here. 

Ko  authority  being  compatible  with  Yahweh’s,  it  fa¬ 
tally  followed  that  no  man  could  rise  above  the  others; 
the  merciless  lord  of  heavens  brought  equality  on  earth, 
and  already  primitive  Mosaism  had  in  it  this  social 
equality.  Before  God  all  men  are  equal;  they  are  equal 
before  the  law,  since  the  law  is  a  divine  emanation,  and 
the  unfortunate  have  the  right,  in  speaking  of  the  rich, 
to  say  to  Kehemiah  :  “Our  flesh  is  as  the  flesh  of  our 
brethren  ;  our  children  as  their  children.”  1 

God  himself  commands  this  equality,  and  again  th<? 
mighty  are  the  obstacle  to  its  realization.  The  humble, 
who  live  in  common,  practice  it  ;  they  follow  the  commu¬ 
nistic  precepts  of  Leviticus,  Exodus,  Numbers,  precepts 
inspired  by  preoccupations  with  equality.  As  for  the 
rich,  they  forget  that  God  had  made  all  men  from  the 


288 


same  clay,  they  disown  the  equality  proclaimed  by  God. 
Thus  they  oppress  the  people,  they  fill  their  houses  with 
the  spoils  of  the  poor,  they  browse  his  vineyard,  they 
make  of  widows  their  prey,  of  orphans  their  booty,1 2  and 
owing  to  them  inequality  exists. 

At  them,  at  these  possessors  and  these  grandees  the 
prophets  hurl  the  anathema;  the  psalmists  thunder:  “0 
Lord  God,  to  whom  vengeance  belongeth;  0  God,  to 
whom  vengeance  belongeth,  show  thyself!”3  they  cry. 
They  rebuke  the  rich  for  the  abundance  of  his  treasures, 
his  luxury,  his  love  of  pleasures  ;  whatever  contributes  to 
raise  him  materially  above  his  brethren;  whatever  can 
give  him  the  impious  arrogance  of  deeming  himself  made 
of  other  dust  than  that  of  which  is  made  the  mountain- 
shepherd  who  pastures  his  sheep  and  fears  God;  what¬ 
ever  makes  him  forget  this  divine  truth;  men  are  equal 
to  one  another,  since  they  are  the  children  of  Yahweh 
who  pretended  giving  each  of  his  subjects  an  equal  share 
of  the  earth  they  tread  on,  an  equal  share  of  joys  and 
blessings. 

The  Israelite’s  hatred  toward  the  rich  abettor  of  in¬ 
justice  was  tangled  up  with  the  hatred  toward  the  rich 
denier  of  the  prescriptions  of  equality.  As  he  could  not 
attribute  divine  origin  to  riches,  as  he  could  not  believe 
that  Yahweh  distributed  it,  thus  breaking  the  pact  which 
bound  him  with  his  nation,  the  Hebrew  decreed  that  all 
wealth  came  from  evil,  from  sin;  he  said  that  all  prop¬ 
erty  was  ill  acquired.  To  make  his  ideas  of  justice  and 


1  Nehemiah,  v,  5. 

2  Isaiah,  iii,  14  ;  x,  2. 

8  Psalms,  xciv,  1. 


equity  agree  with  reality,  which  showed  him  David  tak¬ 
ing  Uri’s  wife  and  Ahab  despoiling  Naboth,  he  was  de¬ 
claring  that  the  prosperity  of  the  wicked  was  a  pure 
phantom,  that  it  lasted  little;  that,  sooner  or  later,  the 
formidable  Sabaoth  stretched  his  right  hand  upon  those 
who  violated  his  law,  and  made  them  return  to  naught. 

Yet  the  poor,  the  anavim,  did  not  see  their  wishes 
being  accomplished;  before  them,  ever  defying  their 
misery,  the  rich  were  making  a  display  of  themselves. 
They  would  then  attribute  to  their  own  sins  the  distress 
with  which  they  were  afflicted;  they  would  carry  their 
hopes  forward  to  the  time  of  Messiah,  when  all  men 
would  be  judged  with  equity,  when  all  would  be  equal, 
all  free,  for  they  possessed  the  love  of  liberty. 

This  passion  contributed  also  to  the  formation  of  the 
revolutionary  spirit  of  the  Jews,  and  speaking  of  liberty 
I  do  not  mean  political  liberty.  The  idea  of  political 
liberty  was  born  in  Israel  particularly  at  the  time  of  the 
Antioch i  and  during  the  Roman  sway,  when  Epiphanes 
or  Sidetes,  Aulus  Gabinius,  or  the  other  proconsuls,  fo¬ 
mented  religious  persecutions,  thus  provoking  the  great 
nationalist  movements  of  the  Zealots  and  Assassins. 

But  if  the  conception  of  political  liberty  was  tard}% 
that  of  individual  liberty  ever  existed  among  the  Jews, 
for  it  was  an  inevitable  corollary  of  their  dogma  of  divin¬ 
ity,  it  proceeded  from  their  theory  of  man’s  creation. 

According  to  this  theory,  all  power  belonged  to  God, 
and  the  Jew  could  be  ruled  by  Yahweh  only.  He  gave 
account  of  his  deeds  to  Adonai  alone,  who  rules  the  heav¬ 
ens  and  earth;  none  of  his  fellow-creatures  had  a  right 
to  restrain  his  activity  or  to  impose  his  will  upon  him; 


290 


with  regard  to  creatures  of  flesh  he  was  free  and  was  to 
be  free.  This  conviction  incapacited  the  Hebrew  for  dis¬ 
cipline  and  subordination,  it  led  him  to  reject  all  shac¬ 
kles  with  which  the  kings  or  patricians  would  have 
wished  to  bind  him,  and  the  princes  of  Judaea  ever  held 
sway  over  a  people  of  rebels,  incapable  of  submitting  to 
any  yoke  or  coercion. 

One  might  believe  that  so  thinking  the  Jews  abdicated 
liberty  into  the  hands  of  the  Lord  whom  they  recognized  ; 
nothing  of  the  kind,  and  they  have  never  been  fatalists 
like  the  Mohammedans.  Over  against  Yahweh  they 
claimed  their  free  will,  and  without  caring  for  the  con¬ 
tradiction  they  stood  up  erect  in  the  face  of  Him  to  assert 
the  reality,  the  inviolability  of  their  self,  while  they 
bowed  to  the  whims  of  their  Lord. 

Were  they  not  created  after  the  image  of  God,  and 
was  not  their  nature  partaking  of  this  God?  Just  be¬ 
cause  they  were  fashioned  after  their  Creator,  their 
human  brethren  must  not  commit  the  sacrilege  of  op¬ 
pressing  them;  but  Yahweh,  who  had  given  men  the 
gift  of  intelligence,  was  not  at  liberty  to  prevent  them 
from  directing  this  intelligence  according  to  their  wrill. 
The  story  of  the  dispute  between  Rabbi  Eliezer  and  the 
rabbis,  his  colleagues,  gives  us  a  sufficiently  typical  sam¬ 
ple,  and  is  worth  quoting. 

In  the  course  of  a  doctrinal  discussion,  the  divine  voice 
was  heard  and,  breaking  in  upon  the  debate,  gave  right 
to  Rabbi  Eliezer.  The  colleagues  of  the  favored  man  did 
not  accept  the  decision  of  heaven;  Rabbi  Joshua,  one 
from  among  them,  arose  and  declared:  “Hot  mysterious 
voices,  but  the  majority  of  sages  must  hereafter  decide 


291 


questions  of  doctrine.  Reason  is  no  longer  hidden  in 
heaven,  the  Law  is  no  longer  in  the  heavens  ;  it  has  been 
granted  on  earth,  and  it  is  the  task  of  human  reason  to 
comprehend  and  explain  it.”1 

If  the  divine  words  met  with  such  a  reception  when 
they  allowed  themselves  to  force  individuals  and  to  wish 
to  impose  upon  man’s  reason  a  will  foreign  to  his  own 
will,  how  were  man’s  words  received  ?  Renan  was  right 
when  saying  of  the  Semites  :  “There  is  nothing,  there¬ 
fore,  in  these  souls  to  resist  the  uncontrollable  feeling  of 
self,”2  and  this  was  more  particularly  true  of  the  Jews. 

After  Yahweh  they  believed  in  self  only.  To  the 
unity  of  God  there  corresponded  the  unity  of  being  ;  to 
God  absolute — absolute  being.  Accordingly,  subjectivity 
has  ever  been  the  fundamental  trait  of  the  Semitic  char¬ 
acter;  it  has  often  led  the  Jews  to  egoism,  and  having 
once  exaggerated  this  egoism,  certain  Talmudists  ended 
with  recognizing,  in  the  matter  of  duties,  nothing  but 
duties  to  one’s  self.  This  subjectivity,  as  much  as  mono¬ 
theism,  accounts  for  the  incapacity  shown  by  the  Jews 
in  all  plastic  arts.  As  for  their  literature  it  was  purely 
subjective;  the  Jewish  prophets,  like  the  psalmists,  like 
the  poets  of  Job  and  the  Song  of  Songs,  like  the  moralists 
of  the  Ecclesiastes  and  the  Book  of  Wisdom,  knew  only 
themselves  and  generalized  their  feelings  or  their  per¬ 
sonal  sensations.  This  subjectivity  also  allows  to  under¬ 
stand  why  the  Jews  have  at  all  times,  even  in  our  days, 
shown  so  much  aptness  for  music — that  most  subjective 
of  all  arts. 


1  Talmud,  Data  Mezia,  59a. 

*  Ernest  Renan,  Histoire  generale  des  langues  sémitiques. 


292 


Thus  they  were  undeniably  individualists,  and  these 
men,  so  eager  to  pursue  earthly  interests,  appear  to  us, — 
thanks  to  their  uncompromising  conception  of  existence, 
— as  untractable  idealists.  Now,  an  individualist  imbued 
with  idealism  is  and  will  always  be  in  revolt.  He  will 
never  want  to  allow  anybody  to  violate  his  sacred  self, 
and  no  will  will  be  able  to  prevail  over  his. 

We  have  separated  all  the  elements  of  which  was 
formed  the  revolutionary  spirit  in  Judaism;  they  are: 
the  idea  of  justice,  of  equality  and  of  liberty.  Still,  if 
among  the  nations  Israel  was  the  first  to  preach  these 
ideas,  other  nations  upheld  them  at  various  moments  of 
history,  and  for  all  that  they  were  not  revolted  peoples 
like  the  Jewish  people.  Why?  Because,  though  con¬ 
vinced  of  the  excellence  of  justice,  equality  and  liberty, 
these  people  did  not  hold  their  complete  realization  as 
possible,  in  this  world  at  least,  and  therefore  they  did  not 
work  solely  for  their  advent. 

The  Jews,  on  the  contrary,  not  only  believed  that  jus¬ 
tice,  liberty  and  equality  could  be  the  sovereigns  of  the 
world,  but  they  thought  themselves  specially  intrusted 
with  the  mission  of  working  for  this  reign.  All  the  de¬ 
sires,  all  the  hopes  these  three  ideas  gave  birth  to  ended 
by  crystallizing  around  one  central  idea  :  that  of  the  Mes¬ 
sianic  times,  of  the  coming  of  Messiah,  who  was  to  be 
sent  by  Yahweh  to  establish  the  power  of  these  queens  of 
the  earth. 

The  prophets  kept  up  Israel  in  this  dream  of  an  era 
of  happiness  and  prosperity,  and  the  Psalms  of  the  pe¬ 
riod  after  the  exile  further  contributed  toward  increasing 
the  belief  in  a  blessed  epoch  when  the  wicked  shall  be  no 


293 


more,  when  “the  meek  shall  Inherit  the  earth  ;  and  shall 
delight  themselves  in  the  abundance  of  peace.”1  From 
the  return  from  Babylon  up  to  the  very  agony  of  the 
Jewish  nation,  this  Messianic  dream  lulled  the  Jews. 
The  tyranny  of  Antiochus,  the  Roman  oppression,  ren¬ 
dered  these  hopes  but  more  indispensable  to  the  JewTs. 
They  consoled  themselves  of  their  trials  by  dreaming  of 
the  day  of  their  deliverance  ;  the  liberator’s  image  formed 
little  by  little  before  them,  and  it  was  all  alive  in  the 
soul  of  those  who  heard  the  voice  of  John  the  Baptist  ex¬ 
claim  :  “The  Kingdom  of  Heavens  is  to  come  !”  in  the 
heart  of  those  who  went  after  Jesus. 

Quite  a  literature  was  born  of  these  hopes  which  so 
many  men  played  false  with  during  the  first  century  be¬ 
fore  and  after  the  Christian  era  ;  but  here  I  can  mention 
but  The  Booh  of  Daniel ,  The  Psalms  of  Solomon ,  The 
Assumption  of  Moses ,  The  Booh  of  Enoch,  The  Fourth 
Booh  of  Ezra,  the  Sibylline  Oracles ;  it  is  impossible  for 
me  to  analyze  these  revelations  and  oracles.  Nearly  all 
of  them  foretell  the  hour  which  will  witness  the  Messi¬ 
anic  times  open;  they  describe  the  signs  that  will  an¬ 
nounce  the  Messiah.  They  also  agree  in  saying  that 
this  moment  will  bring  the  death  of  evil,  and  the  Sibyl 
sums  them  all  up  when  soothsaying:  “From  the  starry 
heavens  Messiah  will  descend  to  men,  and  with  him  holy 
concord,  faith,  love,  hospitality.  He  will  drive  iniquity, 
reprehension,  envy,  anger,  folly,  from  this  world.  No 
more  poverty,  murders,  evil  wranglings,  dark  quarrels, 
nocturnal  thieveries.  No  more  of  that  which  is  perverse. 
.  .  .  The  pious  men  will  live  happily  in  cities  and 


1  Psalms,  xxxvii,  11. 


294 


rich  estates.”1  The  earth  will  be  delivered  of  injustice, 
inequality  will  be  known  no  longer  and  all  men  will  be 
free. 

Israel  did  not  want  to  trust  any  one  of  those  who  rep¬ 
resented  themselves  as  the  Messiah.  He  rejected  all 
those  who  said  they  had  been  sent  from  God  ;  he  has  re¬ 
fused  to  hear  Jesus,  Bar-Cochba,  Theudas,  David  Alroy, 
Serene,  Moses  of  Crete,  Sabbatai-Zevi.  It  means  that 
Israel  never  saw  his  ideal  become  real.  None  of  the 
prophets  that  came  to  him  has  brought  the  divine  justice, 
triumphant  equality  or  indestructible  liberty  in  the  folds 
of  his  robe;  at  the  voice  of  these  anointed  the  Jews  did 
not  see  chains  fall,  prison-walls  crumble,  the  rod  of  au¬ 
thority  rot,  the  ill-gotten  treasures  of  the  rich  and  de¬ 
spoilers  scatter  like  empty  smoke. 

Notwithstanding  their  long  bondage,  despite  the  years 
of  martyrdom  which  have  been  their  lot,  in  spite  of  the 
centuries  of  humiliation,  which  have  debased  their 
character,  depressed  their  brains,  cramped  their  intelli¬ 
gence,  changed  their  tastes,  their  customs,  their  apti¬ 
tudes,  the  debris  of  Judah  have  not  abjured  their  so 
vivid  dream,  which  had  been  their  support  and  inspira¬ 
tion  during  the  wars  for  independence. 

The  funeral-piles,  massacres,  spoliations,  insults, 
everything  contributed  to  make  dearer  to  them  the  jus¬ 
tice,  the  equality  and  the  liberty  which  during  many 
long  years  were  for  them  the  emptiest  words.  The  great 
voice  of  the  prophets  proclaiming  that  the  wicked  will 
be  punished  one  day  has  always  found  an  echo  in  these 
tenacous  souls  that  did  not  like  to  bend,  and  despised 


1  Sibyllino  Oracles,  iii,  573,  585. 


295 


this  so  miserable  reality  in  order  to  delude  themselves 
with  the  idea  of  the  future  time;  that  future  time,  of 
which  Amos  and  Isaiah,  Jeremiah  and  Ezekiel,  and  all 
those  have  spoken  who  sang  Mizmorim  (psalms),  to 
their  own  accompaniment  on  stringed  instruments. 
However  gloomy  the  present,  Israel  never  ceased  to  be¬ 
lieve  in  the  future. 

The  Jews  were  told:  “Why  do  you  await  Messiah; 
obdurate,  know  ye  not  that  he  has  come?”  They  ans¬ 
wered  with  sarcasm,  they  shrugged  their  shoulders  and 
replied  :  “The  Messiah  has  not  come,  for  we  are  suffer¬ 
ing,  for  famine  desolates  the  land,  for  the  black  pest 
and  the  nobleman  burden  the  sorrowful  wretches  !” 
But  when  they  would  be  told  that  their  Meshiach  would 
never  come,  they  would  lift  up  their  bowed  down  heads 
and,  stubborn  that  they  were,  would  say:  “Meshiach 
will  come  one  day  and  on  that  day  will  be  understood 
the  word  of  the  Psalmist:  T  have  seen  the  wicked  in 
great  power  and  spreading  himself  like  a  green  bay 
tree.  Yet  he  passed  away  and  lo  !  he  was  not  ;  yea,  I 
sought  him,  but  he  could  not  be  found’*  and  the  poor, 
the  just  are  those  who  will  possess  the  earth.” 

The  narrow  practices  into  which  their  doctors  had 
pressed  the  Jews,  have  put  to  slumber  their  instincts  of 
revolt.  Under  the  bonds  of  the  Talmudic  laws,  they 
felt  tottering  in  them  the  ideas  that  had  ever  sustained 
them,  and  it  could  be  said  that  Israel  could  be  van¬ 
quished  only  by  himself.  Still  the  Talmud  did  not  de¬ 
base  all  Jews;  among  those  who  rejected  it  there  were 
some  who  persisted  in  the  belief  that  justice,  liberty  and 


*  Psalms,  xxxvii,  35-36. 


296 


equality  were  to  come  to  this  world  ;  there  were  many  of 
them  who  believed  that  the  people  of  Yahweh  was 
charged  with  working  for  this  coming.  This  makes  it 
plain  why  the  Jews  were  implicated  in  all  revolutionary 
movements,  for  they  took  an  active  part  in  all  revolu¬ 
tions,  as  we  shall  see  when  we  study  their  role  during  all 
periods  of  trouble  and  change.1. 

It  remains  now  to  know  how  the  Jew  has  manifested 
these  revolutionary  tendencies,  whether  he  was  actually 
(as  he  is  accused)  an  element  of  disturbance  in  modern 
societies;  and  thus  we  are  led  to  examine  the  religious, 
political  and  economic  causes  of  antisemitism. 


1  It  would  require  a  long  study  to  show  the  role  of  the  Jews 
in  the  revolutions.  We  hope  to  undertake  this  study,  and  we 
shall  bring  together,  at  present,  only  its  elements  ;  it  will  form 
part  of  a  book  in  which  we  intend  to  take  up  again  this  whole 
chapter  as  well  as  a  part  of  the  following  chapter  ;  there  we 
shall  make  a  more  detailed  criticism  of  the  ideas  which  we  have 
expressed,  and  wre  shall  examine  whether  the  Jews  at  all  times 
or  at  least  some  among  the  Jews  at  all  times  had  not  attempted 
to  realize  these  ideas. 


297 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

THE  JEW  AS  A  FACTOR  IN  THE  TRANSFORMATION  OF  SOCI¬ 
ETY. — POLITICAL  AND  RELIGIOUS  CAUSES  OF 
ANTISEMITISM. 

The  Jew  as  a  Revolutionist. — The  Jews  of  the  Middle 
Ages  and  the  Spirit  of  Skepticism. — Jewish  Ration¬ 
alism  and  Christianity. — The  J ews  and  Secret  Soci¬ 
eties. — The  Role  Played  by  the  Jews  in  the  French 
Revolution  and  in  the  Upheavals  of  the  Nineteenth 
Century. — The  Jews  and  Socialism. — Political,  So¬ 
cial  and  Religious  Changes  at  Work  in  Present-day 
Society. — The  Grievances  of  the  Conservative  Ele¬ 
ments  and  Antisemitism. — The  Jew  as  a  Menace 
to  Public  Order  and  a  Solvent  of  Society. — The 
Judaization  of  Christian  Nations  and  the  Decay  of 
Faith. — Is  the  J ew  Still  anti-Christian  ? — The  Per¬ 
sistence  of  anti-Jewish  Prejudices. — Ritual  Murder. 
— The  Jews  and  the  Talmud. — The  Synagogue  and 
the  Spirit  of  Religious  Indifferentism  Among  the 
Jews. — The  Emancipated  Jew. — Liberalism,  Anti¬ 
clericalism  and  the  Jews. — Judaism  and  the  Chris¬ 
tian  State. — The  Modern  Struggle. — The  Spirit  of 
Conservatism  versus  the  Spirit  of  Revolution. — 
Tradition  and  Change. — Antisemitism  in  an  Age  of 
Transition. — The  Jew  in  Society. 


298 


Thus  it  would  seem  as  if  the  grievance  of  the  anti- 
Semite  were  well  founded  ;  the  J ewish  spirit  is  essentially 
a  revolutionary  spirit,  and  consciously  or  otherwise,  the 
Jew  is  a  revolutionist.  Not  content,  however,  with  this, 
antisemitism  would  have  it  that  the  Jews  are  the  very 
cause  of  revolution.  Let  us  see  what  truth  there  is  in 
the  charge. 

Taking  him  as  he  was,  the  tendencies  of  his  nature  and 
the  direction  of  his  sympathies  made  it  inevitable  that 
the  Jew  should  play  an  important  part  in  the  revolu¬ 
tions  of  history;  and  such  a  part  he  has  not  failed  to 
play.  Nevertheless  it  would  be  too  much  to  say,  with  the 
great  mass  of  Israel’s  enemies,  that  every  public  commo¬ 
tion,  every  uprising,  every  political  overturning  has 
originated  with  the  Jews,  or  has  been  provoked  or  occa¬ 
sioned  by  the  Jews,  and  that  governments  change  and 
take  on  new  forms  because  the  J ew  in  his  secret  counsels 
has  plotted  such  changes  and  transformations.  In  main¬ 
taining  such  a  proposition  we  violate  the  simplest  of  his¬ 
torical  laws,  by  assigning  to  a  minute  cause  a  totally  dis¬ 
proportionate  effect,  and  concentrating  our  attention 
upon  one  phase  of  historical  development  to  the  exclu¬ 
sion  of  a  thousand  others  of  its  manifold  aspects.  Had 
the  J ews  perished  to  a  man  behind  the  walls  of  Zion,  the 
destiny  of  nations  would  not  have  been  changed,  and 
though  thé  Jewish  element  were  wanting  to  this  won¬ 
drous  totality  which  we  call  progress,  society  would  have 
developed  notwithstanding.  Other  forces  would  have 
taken  the  place  of  the  Jews  and  accomplished  what  the 
Jews  have  accomplished  in  the  general  scheme.  Given 
the  Bible  and  Christianity,  the  intellectual  and  moral 


299 


mission  of  the  Jew  would  have  been  carried  out  without 
him.  The  Jew,  therefore,  is  not  the  animating  force  of 
the  world,  nor  our  sole  guide  to  a  newer  life.  At  the 
same  time,  those  who,  in  an  excess  of  caution,  would  rep¬ 
resent  the  Jew  as  exercising  no  influence  at  all  in  his¬ 
torical  evolution,  or,  going  further  still,  assert  that  the 
J ew  is  essentially  inimical  to  progress,  fall  into  as  grave 
an  error  as  do  the  antisémites. 

The  Jew,  it  is  said,  is  non-progressive;  it  is  necessary 
to  see  in  what  sense  and  after  what  fashion  this  is  true. 
The  Jew  is  non-progressive  in  so  far  as  regards  himself, 
in  clinging  tenaciously  to  his  traditions,  his  modes  of 
worship  and  his  customs.  So  loath  is  he  to  abandon  the 
old  that  stagnation  has  resulted,  and  we  may  study  the 
life  of  the  Middle  Ages  in  the  Jewries  of  Galicia,  Poland 
and  Russia.  But  in  reality  it  is  not  so  much  Judaism 
which  is  non-progressive  as  Talmudism.  We  have  just 
seen  that  it  is  the  Talmud  alone  that  can  subdue  the  Jew 
and  tame  his  rebellious  instincts,  and  it  is  the  study  of 
the  Talmud,  obligatory  and  exclusive,  that  has  prevented 
the  Jew  from  drinking  at  the  real  fountain-head,  the 
Bible;  the  doctors  have  stifled  the  prophets.  Still,  we 
must  not  forget  that  the  Talmudists  were  at  one  time 
philosophers  also,  and  philosophers  of  the  rationalist 
school.1  In  the  tenth  century  the  Rabbinites,  following 
in  the  footsteps  of  the  Karaites,  attempted  to  ground  re¬ 
ligion  upon  philosophy.  Saadiah,  gaon  of  Sora,  main- 

1  The  Talmud  is,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  permeated  with  the 
spirit  of  rationalism  ;  witness  the  famous  controversy  between 
Rabbi  Eliezer  and  his  colleagues,  in  which  it  was  maintained 
that  miracles  can  not  afford  sufficient  evidence  of  truth  (Tal¬ 
mud,  Baba  Mezia ,  59). 


300 


tained  that  side  by  side  with  the  authority  of  Scripture 
and  tradition  ran  the  authority  of  reason,  and  he 
preached  “not  only  the  right,  but  the  duty,  of  applying 
the  test  of  reason  to  religious  belief.”2  In  the  eleventh 
century,  Ibn  Gebirol,  known  to  the  scholastics  as  Avice- 
bron,  gave  life  to  the  Arabian  philosophy  by  the  pub¬ 
lication  of  his  Fons  Vitae.  Of  Maimonides  and  of  his 
work  I  have  already  spoken. 

It  was  these  rationalist  thinkers  and  philosophers  who 
from  the  tenth  to  the  fifteenth  century,  that  is,  to  the 
Renaissance,  took  an  active  part  in  what  might  be  termed 
the  universal  revolution  of  humanity.  To  a  certain  ex¬ 
tent  they  helped  Man  to  free  himself  from  the  bonds  of 
religion;  and,  even  if  at  the  beginning  of  this  period 
they  were  not  fully  conscious,  perhaps,  of  the  nature  of 
the  work  they  were  performing,  they  accomplished  their 
work  nevertheless.  At  a  time  when  orthodoxy  and  the 
Christian  faith  constituted  the  foundation  of  States,  he 
who  ventured  to  attack  the  established  dogmas  of  faith 
or  gave  aid  to  those  who  assailed  them,  was  naturally  a 
revolutionist. 

Theologians  who  resort  to  reason  for  the  defence  of 
dogma,  will  inevitably  end  by  asserting  the  superiority 
of  reason  to  dogma,  with  fatal  results  to  the  latter.  Ex¬ 
egesis  and  freedom  of  investigation  are  powerful  destroy¬ 
ers,  and  it  is  the  Jews  who  originated  biblical  exegesis, 
just  as  they  were  the  first  to  criticize  the  forms  and  doc¬ 
trines  of  Christianity.  Already  had  the  Jews  of  Pales¬ 
tine  assailed  the  doctrine  of  the  Incarnation  as  implying 

2  S.  Munk,  Melanges  de  philosophie  juive  et  arahe  (Paris, 
1859),  p.  478. 


301 


a  degradation  of  the  divine  essence,  and  therefore  impos¬ 
sible,  an  idea  which  Spinoza  was  to  take  up  later  in  his 
Tractatus  theologico-politicus.  The  polemic  carried  on 
by  the  Jews  against  the  Christians  was  based  upon  this 
idea  and  upon  what  might  be  called  positivist  reasoning. 
We  have  an  example  of  the  latter  in  Origen’s  Contra  Cel- 
sum,  for  we  know  that  Celsus  had  borrowed  his  ration¬ 
alist  arguments  from  the  J ews  of  his  time.  The  import¬ 
ance  of  the  controversial  literature  of  the  Middle  Ages 
has  already  been  shown.1  If  we  study  closely  we  find 
in  it  all  the  arguments  advanced  by  the  scholars  of  our 
own  day.  It  might,  indeed,  be  maintained  in  denial  of 
the  revolutionary  role  said  to  have  been  played  by  the 
Jews,  that  the  greater  part  of  their  exegesis  was  ad¬ 
dressed  to  Jews  only,  and  that  it  consequently  could  not 
have  been  a  means  of  inciting  to  change,  inasmuch  as  the 
Jew  knew  well  how  to  reconcile  the  results  of  textual 
criticism  with  the  minutiae  of  his  practices  and  the  in¬ 
tegrity  of  his  faith.  This,  however,  is  not  altogether 
true,  for  Jewish  doctrines  did  find  their  way  out  of  the 
synagogue,  and  this  in  two  different  ways.  In  the  first 
place,  the  J ews  could  always  find  an  opportunity  for  pro¬ 
claiming  their  ideals,  thanks  to  the  prevalence  of  public 
disputation.  In  the  second  place,  they  were  the  means  of 
disseminating  the  Arabian  philosophy,  and  were  its  ex¬ 
pounders  at  a  time,  twelfth  century,  to  be  precise,  when 
A1  Farabi  and  Ibn  Sina  were  being  anathematized  in  the 
mosques,  and  orthodox  Mussulmans  were  feeding  the 
fires  with  the  writings  of  the  Arabian  Aristotelians.  The 
Jews  of  this  period  translated  the  writings  of  Aris- 


1  Chapter  vii. 


302 


totle  and  of  the  Arabian  philosophers  into  Hebrew,  and 
these,  retranslated  into  Latin,  afforded  the  scholastics  an 
opportunity  for  becoming  acquainted  with  Greek 
thought.  The  most  famous  of  the  scholastics,  “men  like 
Albertus  Magnus  and  St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  studied  the 
works  of  Aristotle  in  Latin  versions  made  from  the  He¬ 
brew.”2 

The  Jews  did  not  stop  there.  They  preached  the  ma¬ 
terialism  of  the  Arabian  philosophers  which  was  to  prove 
so  destructive  to  the  Christian  faith,  and  carried  abroad 
the  spirit  of  skepticism.  Their  activity  was  such  as  to 
give  rise  to  a  general  belief  in  the  existence  of  a  secret 
society  sworn  to  the  destruction  of  Christianity.* 1  Dur¬ 
ing  the  thirteenth  century,  a  century  which  witnessed 
the  rapid  development  of  that  complex  of  humanism, 
skepticism  and  paganism  which  we  call  the  Renaissance, 
at  a  time  when  the  Hohenstaufen  defended  the  cause  of 
science  against  dogma,  and  showed  themselves  the  pro¬ 
tectors  of  Epicureanism,  the  Jews  occupied  the  first 
place  among  scholars  and  rationalist  philosophers.  At 
the  Court  of  the  Emperor  Frederick  II,  “that  hotbed  of 
irréligion,”  they  were  received  with  favor  and  respect. 
It  was  they,  as  Renan  has  shown,2  that  created  Averro- 
ism;  it  was  they  who  established  the  fame  of  that  Ibn- 
Roshd,  that  Averroes  whose  influence  was  destined  to 
become  so  great.  Without  doubt  they  had  their  share, 
too,  in  the  dissemination  of  the  “blasphemies”  of  the  im- 


*  S.  Munk,  loc.  cit. 

1  Cf.  the  poetic  account  of  the  Descent  of  St.  Paul  into  Hell, 
cited  by  Ernest  Renan  in  his  Averroes  et  V Averroisme,  p.  284. 

1  E.  Renan,  loc.  cit. 


303 


pious  Arabians  ;  blasphemies  which  an  Emperor,  fond  of 
science  and  of  philosophy,  encouraged.  These  find  their 
type  in  the  so-called  “Blasphemy  of  the  Three  Impos¬ 
tors,”  Moses,  Jesus  and  Mahomet,  invented  by  the  theo¬ 
logians,  and  their  spirit  is  tersely  summed  up  in  the  say¬ 
ing  of  the  Arabian  soufis,  “What  care  I  for  the  Kaaba  of 
the  Mohammedan,  the  synagogue  of  the  Jew,  or  the  con¬ 
vent  of  the  Christian  !”  Truly  has  Darmesteter  writi 
ten  :  “The  J ew  was  the  apostle  of  unbelief,  and  every  re¬ 
volt  of  the  mind  originated  with  him,  whether  secretly 
or  in  the  open.  In  that  immense  foundry  of  blasphemy 
maintained  by  the  Emperor  Frederick  and  the  princes 
of  Suabia  and  Aragon,  he  acted  a  busy  part.”3 

Another  thing  also  is  worthy  of  notice.  If  the  Jews 
as  followers  of  Averroes,  or  as  unbelievers,  skeptics  and 
blasphemers,  sapped  the  foundations  of  Christianity  in 
spreading  the  doctrines  of  materialism  and  rationalism, 
they  were  also  the  creators  of  that  other  enemy  of  Catho¬ 
lic  dogma,  pantheism.  In  fact  the  Fons  Vitae  of  Avice- 
bron  was  the  well  at  which  numerous  heretics  drank. 
It  is  even  quite  possible  that  David  de  Dinant  and 
Amaury  de  Chartres,  were  influenced  by  the  Fons  Vitae 
which  they  knew  in  a  Latin  translation  made  in  the 
twelfth  century  by  the  archdeacon  Dominique  Gundissa- 
linus.  It  is  certain  that  Giordano  Bruno  borrowed  from 
the  Fons  Vitae ,  whence  his  pantheism  came  in  part.* 1 

If,  therefore,  the  Jews  were  not  solely  responsible  for 
the  destruction  of  religious  doctrine  and  the  decay  of 

8  James  Darmesteter:  Coup  d’oeil  sur  l’histoire  du  peuple 
juif ,  Paris,  1881, 

1  P.  582. 


304 


faith,  they  may  at  least  be  counted  among  those  who 
helped  to  bring  about  such  a  state  of  desuetude  and  the 
changes  which  followed.  If  they  had  never  existed,  the 
Arabians  and  the  heterodox  theologians  would  have 
filled  their  place;  but  they  did  exist,  and  existing  they 
were  not  idle.  Moreover  the  Hebrew  genius  worked  not 
only  through  them,  for  their  Bible  became  a  powerful 
aid  to  all  advocates  of  freedom  of  thought.  The  Bible 
was  the  soul  of  the  Reformation,  just  as  it  was  the  soul 
of  the  religious  and  political  revolution  in  England. 
Bible  in  hand,  Luther  and  the  English  recusants  blazed 
the  path  to  liberty,  and  it  was  through  the  Bible  that 
Luther,  Melanchthon  and  others  broke  the  yoke  of  Ro¬ 
man  theocracy  and  overthrew  the  tyranny  of  dogma. 
But  they  made  use,  too,  of  that  Jewish  scholarship 
which  Nicholas  de  Lyra  had  transmitted  to  the  Chris¬ 
tian  world.  Si  Lyra  non  lyrasset ,  Lutherus  non  sal - 
tasset ,  it  used  to  be  said,  and  Lyra  had  studied  with  the 
Jews;  in  fact,  he  was  so  steeped  in  the  science  of  He¬ 
brew  exegesis  that  he  was  taken  for  a  J ew  himself.  Here, 
too,  however,  it  must  be  remembered,  that  the  Jews  were 
not  the  cause  of  the  Reformation  (  the  absurdity  of  such 
a  contention  is  patent),  though  they  certainly  were  its 
promoters.  This  is  the  line  which  should  separate  the 
impartial  historian  from  the  antisémite.  The  antisém¬ 
ite  says  the  Jew  is  the  “designer,  the  constructor  and  the 
chief  engineer  of  revolutions.”1 

The  historian  confines  himself  to  the  task  of  investi¬ 
gating  the  role  which  the  Jew,  given  his  genius,  his  char- 

1  Gougenot  des  Mousseaux,  Le  Juif,  le  judaïsme  et  le  judaise- 
tion  des  peuples  chrétiens  (p.  25). 


305 


acter  and  the  nature  of  his  philosophy  and  his  religion, 
could  possibly  have  played  in  the  revolutionary  process 
and  in  the  work  of  revolution  itself.  By  the  revolution¬ 
ary  process,  I  mean  the  intellectual  progress  of  revolu¬ 
tion,  or  rather  what  the  conservatives  call  revolution, 
but  which  may  be  described  as  comprising,  on  the  one 
hand,  the  slow  but  steady  subversion  of  the  Christian 
state  and  the  undermining  of  religious  authority,  and 
on  the  other  hand  a  parallel  development  on  economic 
lines.  I  have  just  shown,  very  briefly,  it  is  true,  the  part 
played  by  the  Jews  in  the  spread  of  new  ideas  during  the 
Middle  Ages,  as  well  as  at  the  beginning  of  the  Reforma¬ 
tion,  and  during  the  Italian  Renaissance  when  Jewish 
Averroists,  like  Elias  del  Medigo,  taught  at  the  univer¬ 
sity  of  Padua,  the  last  refuge  of  Arabian  philosophy.2 
We  might  pursue  the  subject  still  further  in  showing 
what  Montaigne,  for  instance,  that  half- Jew,  owed  to 
his  ancestry,  and  whether  it  was  not  from  that  source 
that  he  drew  his  unbelief  and  his  skepticism.  It  would 
be  necessary  to  go  still  further,  to  study  the  critical 
method  of  the  rationalist  Spinoza,  and  to  discover  its 
relation  to  the  Christian  exegesis  of  the  Scriptures.  It 
would  be  necessary  to  show  what  were  the  Jewish  ele¬ 
ments  in  the  metaphysical  system  of  him  whom  his  con¬ 
temporaries  picttured  as  the  prince  of  atheists,3  and  who, 

2  J.  Burckhart,  La  civilisation  en  Italic  au  temps  de  la  Re¬ 
naissance  (Paris,  1885). 

*  On  Spinoza,  as  an  atheist,  consult  the  Life  of  Spinoza,  by 
Colerus,  an  opponent  of  his;  of  the  numerous  works  published 
against  Spinoza  and  the  atheistic  movement  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  see  Kortholt,  De  Tribus  Impostoribus ,  which  revives 
the  legend  of  Averroism  ;  also  the  treatise  of  the  learned  Mu* * 
saeus,  professor  of  theology  at  Jena,  “a  man  of  great  genius,” 


306 


according  to  Schleiermacher,  was  drunk  with  God.  It 
would  be  necessary,  finally,  to  trace  the  influence  of 
Spinoza’s  teachings  on  philosophic  thought,  especially  at 
the  end  of  the  eighteenth  and  the  beginning  of  the  nine¬ 
teenth  centuries,  when  the  weazened  little  Jewish  lens- 
maker  became  the  master  and  the  “daily  refuge”  of 
Goethe,* 1  the  saint  adored  by  Novalis  and  Schleier- 
macher,  the  inspiration  of  the  earliest  romanticists  and 
metaphysicians  of  Germany. 

In  like  manner  we  would  have  to  inquire  what  was 
the  importance,  I  will  not  say  of  the  Jew,  but  of  the 
Jewish  spirit  throughout  the  period  of  fierce  revolt 
against  Christianity  which  characterized  the  eighteenth 
century.  We  must  not  forget  that  in  the  seventeenth 
century,  scholars  like  Wagenseil,  Bartolocci,  Buxtorf  and 
Wolf,  had  brought  forth  from  oblivion  old  volumes  of 
Hebrew  polemic,  written  in  refutation  of  the  Trinity 
and  the  Incarnation  and  attacking  all  dogmas  and  forms 
of  Christianity  with  a  bitterness  entirely  Judaic,  and 
with  all  the  subtlety  of  those  peerless  casuists  who  cre¬ 
ated  the  Talmud.  They  gave  to  the  world  not  only 
treatises  on  questions  of  doctrine  and  exegesis,  like  the 
Nizzachon  or  the  ChizuJc  Emundh2  but  published  blas¬ 
phemous  tractates  and  pseudo-lives  of  J esus,  of  the 
character  of  the  Toldoth  J esho.  The  eighteenth  century 
repeated,  concerning  Jesus  and  the  Virgin,  the  outra- 

says  our  friend  Colerus,  “who  Spinozam  pestilent ium  foctum 
acutissimis,  queis  solet,  telis  confodit .”  The  monstrous  cartoons 
of  Spinoza  bearing  the  legend  “Signum  reprobations  in  vultu 
gerens,”  are  well  known. 

1  Goethe,  Mémoires ,  liv  ;  xvi  ;  Annales,  1811. 

a  See  Chap.  vii. — Wolf,  Bibl.  Hebr.,  vol.  iv,  p.  639. 


307 


geous  fables  invented  by  the  Pharisees  of  the  second 
century;  we  find  them  in  Voltaire  and  in  Parny,  and 
their  rationalist  satire,  pellucid  and  mordant,  lives  again 
in  Heine,  in  Boerne  and  in  Disraeli;  just  as  the  power¬ 
ful  logic  of  the  ancient  rabbis  lives  again  in  Karl  Marx, 
and  the  passionate  thirst  for  liberty  of  the  ancient  He¬ 
brew  rebels  breathes  forth  again  in  the  glowing  soul  of 
Ferdinand  Lassalle. 

I  have  sketched  here,  and  that  in  the  broadest  strokes, 
the  function  performed  by  the  Jews  in  the  development 
of  certain  ideas  which  helped  to  bring  on  the  general 
revolution;  but  I  have  not  yet  shown  how  the  activity 
of  the  J ew  revealed  itself  in  the  very  work  of  revolution. 
I  believe  I  have  established  the  fact,  on  more  than  one 
occasion,  that  the  Jew’s  acted  as  a  leaven  upon  the  eco¬ 
nomic  development  of  the  age,1  even  though  their  influ¬ 
ence  may  have  proved  to  be,  as  the  partisans  of  the  old 
régime  assert,  a  source  of  disorder;  order  and  stability 
being  represented  by  the  Christian  monarchical  state. 
If  we  are  to  believe  Barruel,  Crétineau- Joly,  Gougenot 
des  Mousseaux,  Dom  Deschamps,  Claudio  Jannet,  all 
those  who  see  in  history  the  mere  work  of  secret  societies, 
the  role  played  by  the  Jews  in  the  political  and  social 
upheavals  of  history  has  been  one  of  capital  importance. 
True  it  is  that,  during  the  last  years  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  secret  associations  exercised  a  great  influence 
on  the  course  of  events,  and  though  they  may  not  have 
been  formulators  of  the  humanitarian,  rationalistic  and 


1 1  hope  to  establish  the  point  still  more  completely  in  my  Eco 
novnic  History  of  the  Jews,  of  which  The  Role  of  Jew  in  the 
french  Revolution  forms  but  a  part. 


308 


revolutionary  theories  of  the  time,  such  societies  cer¬ 
tainly  were  the  cause  of  the  enormously  widespread  dis¬ 
semination  of  revolutionary  ideas.  They  were,  in  fact, 
great  centres  of  agitation.  It  cannot  be  denied  that 
Free  Masonry  and  Martinism  were  powerful  agents  in 
bringing  about  the  revolution,  but  it  must  be  remem¬ 
bered  that  their  importance  increased  only  as  the  theo¬ 
ries  for  which  they  stood  became  predominant  in  society, 
and  that,  far  from  being  the  creators  of  that  spirit  of 
the  times  which  was  the  fundamental  cause  of  the  Rev¬ 
olution,  they  were  in  themselves  but  one  of  its  effects, 
though  an  effect  to  be  sure  which  reacted  in  its  turn 
upon  the  course  of  events. 

What  then  was  the  connection  between  these  secret 
societies  and  the  Jews?  The  problem  is  a  difficult  one 
to  solve,  for  respectable  documentary  evidence  on  the 
subject  there  is  none.  It  is  clear,  however,  that  the 
Jews  were  not  the  dominant  factors  in  these  associations, 
as  the  writer  whom  I  have  just  now  quoted  would  have 
it;  they  were  not  “necessarily  the  soul,  the  heads,  the 
grand-masters  of  Free  Masonry,”  as  Gougenot  des  Mous¬ 
seaux  mantains.1  It  is  true,  of  course,  that  there  were 
Jews  connected  with  Free  Masonry  from  its  birth,  stu¬ 
dents  of  the  Kabbala,  as  is  shown  by  certain  rites  which 
survive.  It  is  very  probable,  too,  that  in  the  years  pre¬ 
ceding  the  outbreak  of  the  French  Revolution,  they  en¬ 
tered  in  greater  numbers  than  ever,  into  the  councils  of 
the  secret  societies,  becoming,  indeed,  themselves  the 
founders  of  secret  associations.  There  were  Jews  in  the 
circle  around  Weishaupt,  and  a  Jew  of  Portuguese  ori- 


1  Gougenot  des  Mousseaux,  loc.  cit. 


309 


gin,  Martinez  de  Pasquales,  established  numerous  groups 
of  illuminati  in  France  and  gathered  a  large  number  of 
disciples,  whom  he  instructed  in  the  doctrines  of  reinte¬ 
gration.2  The  lodges  which  Martinez  founded  were 
mystic  in  character,  whereas  the  other  orders  of  Free 
Masonry  were,  on  the  whole,  rationalistic  in  their  teach¬ 
ings.  This  might  almost  lead  one  to  say  that  the  secret 
societies  gave  expression  in  a  way  to  the  twofold  nature 
of  the  Jew,  on  the  one  hand  a  rigid  rationalism,  on  the 
other  that  pantheism  which,  beginning  as  the  metaphys¬ 
ical  reflection  of  the  belief  in  one  God,  often  ended  in 
a  sort  of  Kabbalistic  theurgy.  There  would  be  little  diffi¬ 
culty  in  showing  how  these  two  tendencies  worked  in 
harmony;  how  Cazotte,  Cagliostro,3  Martinez,  Saint- 
Martin,  the  Comte  de  Saint  Gervais,  and  Eckartshausen 
were  practically  in  alliance  with  the  Encyclopaedists 
and  Jacobins,  and  both,  in  spite  of  their  seeming  hos¬ 
tility,  succeeded  in  arriving  at  the  same  end,  the  under¬ 
mining,  namely,  of  Christianity. 

This,  too,  then,  would  tend  to  show  that  though  the 
Jews  might  very  well  have  been  active  participants  in 
the  agitation  carried  on  by  the  secret  societies,  it  was 
not  because  they  were  the  founders  of  such  associations, 
but  merely  because  the  doctrines  of  the  secret  societies 
agreed  so  well  with  their  own.  The  case  of  Martinez  de 
Pasquales  is  an  exceptionable  one,  and  even  with  regard 
to  him,  it  should  be  remembered  that  before  he  became 
the  founder  of  lodges,  Martinez  had  already  been  initi- 

2  M.  Matter,  Saint  Martin  et  la  philosophie  inconnue. 

"The  statement  is  often  made  that  Cagliostro  was  a  Jew,  but 
the  assertion  is  based  on  no  real  evidence. 


310 


ated  into  the  mysteries  of  the  illuminati  and  the  Rosi- 
crucians. 

During  the  Revolution  the  Jews  did  not  remain  inac¬ 
tive,  considering  how  few  their  numbers  were  in  Paris; 
the  position  they  occupied  as  district  electors,  officers  of 
legion,  and  associate  judges,  was  important.  There 
were  eighteen  of  them  in  the  capital,  and  one  must  wade 
through  provincial  archives  to  determine  what  part  they 
played  in  affairs.  Of  these  eighteen  some  even  deserve 
official  mention.  There  was  the  surgeon  Joseph  Ravel, 
member  of  the  General  Council  of  the  Commune,  who 
was  executed  on  the  ninth  Thermidor;  Isaac  Calmer, 
President  of  the  Committee  of  Safety  at  Clichy,  exe¬ 
cuted  on  the  29th  Messidor,  Year  II;  and  Jacob  Pe¬ 
reira,  who  had  held  the  post  of  commissioner  of  the  Bel¬ 
gian  government  with  the  army  of  Dumouriez,  and  who 
as  a  follower  of  Hébert,  was  brought  to  trial  and  con¬ 
demned  at  the  same  time  as  his  chief,  and  was  executed 
on  the  4th  Germinal,  Year  II.1  We  have  seen  how,  as 
followers  of  Saint  Simon,  they  brought  about  the  eco¬ 
nomic  revolution  in  which  the  year  1789  was  but  a  step.2 
the  important  position  occupied  by  d’Eichthal  and 
Isaac  Pereira  in  the  school  of  Olinde  Rodriguez.  Dur¬ 
ing  the  second  revolutionary  period,  which  begins  in 
1830,  they  displayed  even  greater  ardor  than  during  the 
first.  They  were  actuated  by  motives  of  personal  inter- 

1  See  Emile  Campardon,  Le  Tribunal  révolutionnaire  de  Paris, 
Paris,  1866. — Procès  instruit  et  juge  au  tribunal  révolutionnaire 
contre  Hebert  et  ses  consorts  (1-4  Germinal),  Paris,  An.  II. — 
Leon  Kahn,  Les  Juifs  a  Paris  (Paris,  1889). 

2  Capefigue,  Histoire  des  grandes  operations  financières. — 
Toussenel,  Les  juifs  rois  de  V époque. 


311 


est,  for  in  the  great  number  of  European  countries  they 
were  not  as  yet  completely  emancipated.  Those,  there¬ 
fore,  who  were  not  revolutionists  by  temperament  or 
principle,  became  such  through  self-interest.  In  labor¬ 
ing  for  the  triumph  of  liberalism,  they  were  looking  for 
their  own  good.  It  is  beyond  a  doubt  that  the  Jews, 
through  their  wealth,  their  energy  and  their  talents, 
supported  and  furthered  the  progress  of  the  European 
revolution.  During  this  period  Jewish  bankers,  Jewish 
manufacturers,  Jewish  poets,  journalists,  and  orators, 
stirred  perhaps  by  quite  different  motives,  were,  never¬ 
theless,  all  striving  towards  the  same  goal.  “With  stoop¬ 
ing  form,  unkempt  beard,  and  flashing  eye,”  writes  Cré- 
tineau- Joly,1  “they  might  have  been  seen  breathlessly 
rushing  up  and  down  everywhere  in  those  countries 
which  were  unhappy  enough  to  be  afflicted  with  them. 
Contrary  to  their  usual  motives,  it  was  not  the  desire  for 
wealth  that  spurred  them  on  to  such  activity,  but  rather 
the  thought  that  Christianity  could  no  longer  withstand 
the  repeated  shocks  which  were  convulsing  society,  and 
they  were  preparing  to  wreak  on  the  cross  of  Calvary 
revenge  for  eighteen  hundred  and  forty  years  of  well- 
deserved  suffering.” 

Nevertheless,  it  was  not  such  feelings  that  animated 
Moses  Hess,  Gabriel  Riesser,  Heine,  and  Boerne  in  Ger¬ 
many,  Manin  in  Italy,  Jellinek  in  Austria,  Dubliner  in 
Poland,  and  many  others  besides  who  fought  for  liberty 
in  those  days.  To  discover  in  that  all-embracing  cru¬ 
sade  which  agitated  Europe  until  the  aftermath  of  1848 

2  Cretineau-Joly,  Histoire  de  Sonderbund,  p.  195  (Paris, 
1850). 


312 


the  work  of  a  few  Jews  intent  on  revenging  themselves 
on  the  Nazarene,  argues  a  remarkable  mental  attitude. 
Still,  whatever  may  have  been  the  end  pursued,  self-inter¬ 
est  or  idealism,  the  Jews  were  the  most  active,  the  most 
zealous  of  missionaries.  We  find  them  taking  part  in 
the  agitation  of  Young  Germany;  large  numbers  of 
them  were  members  of  the  secret  societies  which  consti¬ 
tuted  the  fighting  force  of  the  Revolution;  they  made 
their  way  into  the  Masonic  lodges,  into  the  societies  of 
the  Carbonari,  they  were  found  everywhere  in  France, 
in  Germany,  in  England,  in  Austria,  in  Italy. 

Their  contribution  to  present-day  socialism  was,  as  is 
well  known,  and  still  is  very  great.  The  J ews,  it  may  be 
said,  are  situated  at  the  poles  of  contemporary  society. 
They  are  found  among  the  representatives  of  industrial 
and  financial  capitalism,  and  among  those  who  have 
vehemently  protested  against  capital.  Rothschild  is  the 
antithesis  of  Marx  and  Lassalle  ;  the  struggle  for  money 
finds  its  counterpart  in  the  struggle  against  money,  and 
the  worldwide  outlook  of  the  stock-speculator  finds  its 
answer  in  the  international  proletarian  and  revolution¬ 
ary  movement.  It  was  Marx  who  gave  the  first  impulse 
to  the  founding  of  the  International  through  the  mani¬ 
festo  of  1847,  drawn  up  by  himself  and  Engels.  Not 
that  it  can  be  said  that  he  “founded”  the  International, 
as  is  maintained  by  those  who  persist  in  regarding  the 
International  as  a  secret  society  controlled  by  the  Jews. 
Many  causes  led  to  the  organization  of  the  International, 
but  from  Marx  proceeded  the  idea  of  a  Labor  Congress, 
which  was  held  at  London  in  1864,  and  resulted  in  the 
founding  of  that  society.  The  Jews  constituted  a  very 


313 


large  proportion  of  its  members,  and  in  the  General 
Council  of  the  society,  we  find  Karl  Marx,  Secretary  for 
Germany  and  Russia,  and  James  Cohen,  secretary  for 
Denmark.* 1  Many  of  the  Jewish  members  of  the  In¬ 
ternational  took  part  subsequently  in  the  Commune,2 
where  they  found  others  of  their  faith.  In  the  organiza¬ 
tion  of  the  socialistic  party,  the  Jews  participated  to  the 
greatest  extent.  Marx  and  Lassalle  in  Germany,1  Aaron 
Libermann  and  Adler  in  Austria,  Dobrojan  Gherea  in 
Roumania,  are  or  were  at  one  time  its  creators  and  its 
leaders.  The  J ews  of  Russia  deserve  special  notice  in  this 
brief  résumé.  Young  Jewish  students,  scarcely  escaped 
from  the  Ghetto,  have  played  an  important  part  in  the 
Nihilistic  propaganda;  some,  among  them  women,  have 
given  up  their  lives  for  the  cause  of  liberation,  and  to 

1  Besides  Marx  and  Cohen,  mention  might  be  made  of  Neu- 
mayer,  secretary  of  the  bureau  of  correspondence  in 
Austria  ;  Fribourg,  who  was  one  of  the  directors  of  the 
Parisian  Federation  of  the  International  to  which  belonged 
Loeb,  Haltmayer,  Lazarre  and  Armand  Levi  ;  Leon  Frankel,  di¬ 
rector  of  the  German  section  at  Paris  ;  Cohen  who  acted  as  dele¬ 
gate  from  the  Cigar  Makers’  Union  of  London  to  the  Congress 
of  the  International  held  at  Brussels  in  1868  ;  Ph.  Coenen  who, 
at  the  same  Congress,  represented  the  Antwerp  section  of  the  In¬ 
ternational,  etc.  See  O.  Testât  :  U  Internationale,  Paris,  1871  ; 
and  U  Internationale  au  ban  de  VEurope  (Paris,  1871-72)  ;  Fri¬ 
bourg,  L1  Association  internationale  des  travailleurs  (Paris, 
1891). 

1  Among  the  others  Fribourg  and  Leon  Frankel. 

1  There  are  at  present  four  Jewish  social-democrats  in  the 
German  Reichstag,  and  among  the  younger  element  in  the  ranks 
of  the  socialists,  collectivists  and  communistic  anarchists,  the 
number  of  the  Jews  is  very  large.  Of  the  reform  party  in  Ger¬ 
many  we  may  mention  Doctor  Hertzka,  the  founder  of  the  Frei- 
land  colony,  an  attempt  at  realizing  the  ideal  social  organization. 

(See  Eine  Reise  nach  Freiland,  von  Theodor  Hertska. 


314 


these  young  Jewish  physicians  and  lawyers,  we  must  add 
the  large  number  of  exiled  workingmen  who  have 
founded  in  London  and  in  New  York  important  labor 
societies,  which  serve  as  centres  of  socialistic  and  even 
of  anarchistic  propaganda.2 

Thus  have  I  briefly  depicted  the  Jew  in  his  character 
ae  a  revolutionist,  or  at  least  have  attempted  to  show 
how  we  might  approach  the  subject.  I  have  described 
his  achievements  both  as  an  agent  in  the  dissemination 
of  revolutionary  ideas,  and  as  an  actual  participant  in 
the  struggle,  and  have  shown  how  he  belongs  to  both 
those  who  prepare  the  way  for  revolution  through  the 
activity  of  the  mind,  and  those  who  translate  thought 
into  action.  The  objection  may  be  raised  that,  in  join¬ 
ing  the  ranks  of  revolution,  the  Jew  as  a  rule,  turns 
atheist,  and  ceases  practically  to  be  a  Jew.  This,  how¬ 
ever,  is  true  only  in  the  sense  that  the  children  of  the 
Jewish  radical  lose  themselves  more  easily  in  the  sur¬ 
rounding  population,  and  that  as  a  result  the  Jewish 
revolutionist  is  more  easily  assimilated.  But  as  a  gen¬ 
eral  thing,  the  Jew,  even  the  extreme  Jewish  radical, 
can  not  help  retaining  his  Jewish  characteristics,  and 

2  In  April  the  members  of  the  Jewish  revolutionary  party  in 
London,  celebrated  the  anniversary  of  the  founding  of  their 
club  in  Berner  street.  In  reviewing  the  history  of  the  social 
movement  among  the  Jews,  the  orator  of  the  occasion  declared 
that  “during  the  last  seven  years,  the  Jew  has  made  his  en¬ 
trance  as  a  revolutionary  ;  and  now  wherever  there  are  Jews, 
— in  London,  in  America,  in  Austria,  in  Poland,  and  in  Russia — 
there  are  Jewish  revolutionists  and  anarchists.”  By  seven 
years,  the  speaker  was  referring  to  the  date  when  the  proletar¬ 
ian  class  among  the  Jews  first  declared  their  adhesion  to  the 
revolutionary  propaganda. 


315  — 


though  he  may  have  abandoned  all  religion  and  all  faith, 
he  has  none  the  less  received  the  impress  of  the  national 
genius  acting  through  heredity  and  early  training.  This 
is  especially  true  of  those  Jews  who  lived  during  the 
earlier  half  of  the  nineteenth  century,  and  of  whom 
Heinrich  Heine  and  Karl  Marx  may  serve  as  fitting  ex¬ 
amples. 

Heine,  who  in  France  was  regarded  as  a  German,  and 
was  reproached  in  Germany  with  being  French,  was 
before  all  things  a  Jew.  As  a  Jew  he  sang  the  praises 
of  Napoleon,  for  whom  he  entertained  a  fervent  admira¬ 
tion  common  to  all  the  German  J ews,  who  had  been  freed 
from  their  disabilities  by  the  Emperor’s  will.  Heine’s 
disenchantment,  his  irony,  are  the  disenchantment  and 
the  irony  of  the  Ecclesiastes  ;likeKoheleth  he  bore  within 
him  the  love  for  life  and  for  the  pleasures  of  the  earth  ; 
and  before  sorrow  and  disease  ground  him  down  death 
to  him  was  the  worst  of  evils.  Heine’s  mysticism  came 
to  him  from  the  ancient  Job.  The  only  philosophy  that 
ever  really  attracted  him  was  pantheism,  a  doctrine 
which  seems  to  come  naturally  to  the  J ewish  philosopher 
who  in  speculating  upon  the  unity  of  God  by  instinct 
transforms  it  into  a  unity  of  substance.  His  sensuous¬ 
ness,  that  sad  and  voluptuous  sensuousness  of  the  Inter - 
mezzo,  is  purely  oriental,  and  has  its  source  in  the  Song 
of  Songs.  The  same  is  true  of  Marx.  The  descendant 
of  a  long  line  of  rabbis  and  teachers  he  inherited  the 
splendid  powers  of  his  ancestors.  He  had  that  clear 
Talmudic  mind  which  does  not  falter  at  the  petty  diffi¬ 
culties  of  fact.  He  was  a  Talmudist  devoted  to  sociol¬ 
ogy  and  applying  his  native  power  of  exegesis  to  the 


316 


criticism  of  economic  theory.  He  was  inspired  by  that 
ancient  Hebraic  materialism,  which,  rejecting  as  too  dis¬ 
tant  and  doubtful  the  hope  of  an  Eden  after  death, 
never  ceased  to  dream  of  Paradise  realized  on  earth.  But 
Marx  was  not  merely  a  logician,  he  was  also  a  rebel,  an 
agitator,  an  acrid  controversalist,  and  he  derived  his  gift 
for  sarcasm  and  invective,  as  Heine  did,  from  his  Jew¬ 
ish  ancestry. 

Continuing  the  argument  we  might  show  what 
Boerne,  what  Lassalle,  what  Moses  Hess  and  Robert 
Blum  owed  to  their  Hebrew  origin,  and  the  same  with 
Disraeli  ;  and  thus  we  would  prove  the  never-failing  per¬ 
sistence,  among  thinkers,  of  the  Jewish  spirit,  that  Jew¬ 
ish  spirit  which  we  have  already  found  in  Montaigne 
and  Spinoza.  But  if  the  writers,  scholars,  poets,  phi¬ 
losophers,  and  sociologists  of  the  Jewish  race  have  pre¬ 
served  this  spirit,  is  it  also  true  of  the  mass  of  the  people 
who  actually  constitute  the  main  strength  of  socialism 
or  anarchism?  Here  a  distinction  must  be  made.  The 
Jews  of  whom  I  speak,  the  Jews  of  London,  the  United 
States,  Holland,  Germany  and  Australia  have  accepted 
revolutionary  doctrines  in  so  far  as  they  belong  to  the 
proletariat,  in  so  far,  that  is,  as  they  are  a  part  of  that 
class  which,  for  the  future,  is  destined  to  be  engaged  in 
continuous  warfare  against  capital;  and  if  they  em¬ 
brace  the  cause  of  revolution  they  do  so  by  virtue  of  cer¬ 
tain  social  laws  which  drive  them  to  such  a  course. 
Therefore  they  do  not  initiate  revolution,  but  rather 
adhere  to  it,  follow  its  progress,  and  put  no  obstacles  in 
its  way.  And  yet  these  groups  of  workingmen  cut  off 
from  their  ancient  faith,  and  free  from  all  religion,  from 


317 


all  belief  *  in  fact,  are  Jews  in  the  national  sense,  even 
though  they  are  no  longer  Jews  in  the  religious  sense. 
The  Jews  of  London  and  of  the  United  States,  who,  to 
escape  the  persecutions  to  which  they  are  subjected  in 
Poland  and  Russia,  abandoned  their  native  country, 
have  formed  associations  among  themselves  in  their  new 
homes;  they  have  organized  societies  calling  themselves 
“Jewish-speaking  groups,”  and  as  such  have  gained  rep¬ 
resentation  at  the  labor  congresses.  They  speak  a  jar¬ 
gon  which  is  a  mixture  of  German  and  Hebrew,  and  not 
only  employ  it  in  their  daily  intercourse,  but  even  pub¬ 
lish  their  party  organs  in  that  vernacular  and  print 
them  in  Hebrew  characters.  The  objection  might  of 
course  be  raised  that,  driven  from  their  native  country, 
and  coming  to  a  land  the  language  of  which  was  strange 
to  them,  they  have  been  obliged  to  cling  together,  and 
that  naturally  they  continue  to  make  use  of  the  vernac¬ 
ular  which  is  familiar  to  them.  This  objection  is  true 
enough,  but  it  may  be  pointed  out  that  in  other  coun¬ 
tries,  as  in  the  Netherlands  and  Galicia,  the  workingmen 
of  Jewish  nationality  are  likewise  organized  in  separate 
associations.2 

The  Jew,  therefore,  does  take  an  active  part  in  revo¬ 
lutions  ;  and  he  participates  in  them  in  so  far  as  he  is  a 

Jew,  or  more  correctly  in  so  far  as  he  remains  Jewish. 
Is  it  for  this  reason,  then,  that  the  conservative  elements 
among  Christians  are  antisémites,  and  is  this  predispo¬ 
sition  of  the  Jews  for  revolutionary  ideas  a  cause  of 
antisemitism?  We  may  say  at  once  that  the  great  ma¬ 
jority  of  conservatives  overlook  entirely  the  historic  and 


318 


educative  role  of  the  Jews.  It  is  appreciated  only,  and 
that  very  imperfectly,  by  the  theorists  and  the  literary 
men  among  the  antisémites.  The  hatred  against  Israel 
does  not  come  from  the  fact  that  the  Jews  were  instru¬ 
mental  in  bringing  about  the  Terror,  or  that  Manin  lib¬ 
erated  Venice,  or  that  Marx  organized  the  International. 
Antisemitism,  the  antisemitism  of  the  Christian  con¬ 
servatives,  says  :  “If  modern  society  is  so  different  from 
the  old  regime  ;  if  religious  faith  has  diminished  ;  if  the 
political  system  has  been  entirely  changed;  if  stock¬ 
gambling,  if  speculation,  if  capital  in  its  industrial  and 
financial  forms,  knowing  no  spirit  of  nationality  domi¬ 
nates  now  and  is  to  dominate  in  the  future,  the  fault 
rests  with  the  Jew.”  Let  us  clearly  examine  this  point. 
The  Jew  has  been  living  for  centuries  in  the  midst  of 
those  nations  which,  so  it  is  said,  are  now  perishing  on 
account  of  his  presence.  Why,  it  may  be  asked,  has  the 
poison  taken  such  a  long  time  to  work?  The  usual  an¬ 
swer  is,  because  formerly  the  J ew  was  outside  of  society  ; 
because  he  was  carefully  kept  apart.  Now  that  the  Jew 
has  entered  into  society,  he  has  become  a  source  of  dis¬ 
order,  and,  like  the  mole,  he  is  busily  engaged  in  under¬ 
mining  the  ancient  foundations  upon  which  rests  the 
Christian  state.  And  this  accounts  for  the  decline  of 
nations,  and  their  intellectual  and  moral  decadence: 
they  are  like  a  human  body  which  suffers  from  the  in¬ 
trusion  of  some  foreign  element  which  it  cannot  assim¬ 
ilate  and  the  presence  of  which  brings  on  convulsions 
and  lasting  disease.  By  his  very  presence  the  Jew  acts 
as  solvent;  he  produces  disorders,  he  destroys,  he  brings 
on  the  most  fearful  catastrophes.  The  admission  of  the 


319 


Jew  into  the  body  of  the  nations  has  proved  fatal  to 
them;  they  are  doomed  for  having  received  him.  Snch 
is  the  very  simple  explanation  which  the  antisémites  ad¬ 
vance  to  account  for  the  changes  which  society  is  under¬ 
going.  For  them  there  are  no  such  things  as  economic 
revolutions,  no  transformations  in  the  nature  of  capital, 
no  such  changes  in  the  human  conscience.  There  are 
only  two  things  which  they  take  into  consideration  :  for-  - 
merly  there  was  a  flourishing  and  prosperous  order  of 
society  based  upon  solid  moral,  political  and  religious, 
principles  ;  now  men  have  overturned  all  the  ancient 
moral  standards,  and  have  abandoned  all  the  judicious 
and  salutary  ideas  concerning  the  necessity  of  absolute 
authority  and  a  priestly  hierarchy  to  preserve  the  bonds 
of  society.  But,  in  former  days,  the  Jew  was  not  ac¬ 
knowledged  a  member  of  society  ;  at  present,  on  the  con¬ 
trary,  he  constitutes  a  very  important  element  in  it. 
Here,  therefore,  is  a  clear  case  of  cause  and  effect,  and 
the  J ew  has  been  made  accountable  for  the  work  of  ages, 
for  the  work  of  a  thousand  different  forces  which  com¬ 
bine  to  produce  national  progress. 

The  accusation  has  not  been  limited  to  this  alone.  The 
Jew,  it  is  said,  is  not  only  a  destroyer,  but  also  an  up- 
builder;  arrogant,  ambitious  and  domineering,  he  seeks 
to  subject  everything  to  himself.  He  is  not  content 
merely  to  destroy  Christianity,  but  he  preaches  the  gos¬ 
pel  of  Judaism;  he  not  only  assails  the  Catholic  or  the 
Protestant  faith,  but  he  incites  to  unbelief,  and  then  im¬ 
poses  on  those  whose  faith  he  has  undermined  his  own 
conception  of  the  world,  of  morality  and  of  life.  He  is 
engaged  in  his  historic  mission,  the  annihilation  of  the 


320 


religion  of  Christ.  Are  the  Christian  antisémites  right 
or  wrong  in  this  respect?  Has  the  Jew  retained  his 
ancient  notions  ;  is  he  still  in  his  actions  anti-Christian  ? 
I  say  in  his  actions,  because  he  is  necessarily  anti-Chris¬ 
tian,  by  definition,  in  being  a  Jew,  just  as  he  is  anti- 
Mohammedan,  just  as  he  is  opposed  to  every  principle 
which  is  not  his  own.  The  answer  is  that  the  Jew  ha3 
retained  his  ancient  animosities  precisely  where  he  has 
been  kept  outside  of  society;  wherever  he  herds  apart; 
in  the  Ghettoes,  where  he  lives  under  the  guidance  of  his 
rabbis,  who  unite  with  the  powers  in  authority  to  pre¬ 
vent  him  from  attaining  light;  everywhere,  in  fact, 
where  the  Talmud  still  dominates,  and  especially  in 
eastern  Europe  where  official  antisemitism  still  prevails. 
In  western  Europe  where  the  Talmud  nowadays  has  lost 
its  influence  and  the  Jewish  cheder  has  given  place  to 
the  public  school,  the  hereditary  hatred  of  the  Jew  for 
the  Christian  has  disappeared  in  the  same  proportion  as 
the  hatred  of  the  Christian  for  the  Jew.  For  we  must 
not  forget  that  though  we  speak  frequently  of  the  ani¬ 
mosity  of  the  Jew  against  the  Christian,  we  speak  very 
rarely  of  the  animosity  of  the  Christian  against  the  Jew, 
a  feeling  which  always  thrives.  Prejudice  against  the 
Jew,  or,  better  still,  the  numerous  prejudices  against 
the  Jew  are  not  dead.  People  still  believe  in  an  odor 
peculiar  to  the  Jews;  a  German  antisémite  goes  so  far 
as  to  declare  that  Pope  Pius  IX  was  a  Jew,  and  that  he 
became  aware  of  the  fact  from  the  odor  of  the  slipper 
which  the  Pope  had  extended  for  him  to  kiss.  Others 
have  retained  a  dim  belief  in  certain  diseases  peculiar 
to  the  Jews,  and  by  the  side  of  antisemitic  physicians, 


321 


devoted  to  the  discovery  of  Jewish  maladies,  there  are 
writers  who  descant  gravely  upon  the  physical  type  of 
the  Jewish  tribes.  We  find  in  the  publications  of  the 
antisémites  all  the  ancient  charges,  which  were  brought 
forward  in  the  Middle  Ages,  and  which  the  seventeenth 
century  revived,  accusations  which  find  support  in  popu¬ 
lar  belief.  The  most  persistent  of  all  accusations,  how¬ 
ever,  and  the  one  which  typifies  best  the  historic  strug¬ 
gle  of  Judaism  against  Christianity,  is  the  charge  of 
ritual-murder.  The  J ew,  it  is  maintained  to  the  present 
day,  has  need  of  Christian  blood  in  order  to  celebrate  his 
Passover.  What  is  the  origin  of  this  accusation  which 
goes  back  to  the  twelfth  century? 

The  first  instance  of  such  an  accusation  being  brought 
against  the  Jews  occurred  at  Blois,  in  1171,  when  they 
were  accused  of  having  crucified  a  child  during  their 
celebration  of  Passover.  Count  Theobald  of  Chartres, 
after  having  caused  the  accuser  of  the  Jews  to  undergo 
the  ordeal  by  water,  which  proved  favorable  to  him,  con¬ 
demned  thirty-four  Jewish  men  and  seventeen  Jewish 
women  to  be  burnt. 

We  can  see  clearly  enough  why  the  Romans  should 
have  brought  the  identical  charge  against  the  early 
Christians.  It  arose  from  a  materialistic  conception  of 
the  Lord’s  Supper,  from  a  literal  interpretation  of  the 
words  employed  in  consecrating  the  flesh  and  blood  of 
Jesus.  But  how  could  the  Jews,  whose  sacred  books 
breathe  forth  a  horror  of  blood,  have  given  occasion,  and 
still  give  occasion,  for  such  a  belief?  This  question 
must  be  discussed  to  the  very  bottom.  We  must  exam¬ 
ine  the  theories  advanced  by  those  who  would  have  it 


322 


that  human  sacrifice  is  a  Semitic  institution,  whereas, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  is  found  among  all  peoples  at  a  cer¬ 
tain  stage  of  civilization  In  this  manner  we  would 
prove,  as  has  in  fact  been  proven,  that  the  J ewish  relig¬ 
ion  does  not  demand  blood.  Can  we,  however,  prove,  in 
addition,  that  no  Jew  ever  shed  blood?  Of  course  not, 
and  throughout  the  Middle  Ages  there  must  have  been 
Jewish  murderers,  Jews  whom  oppression  and  persecu¬ 
tion  drove  to  avenge  themselves  by  assassinating  their 
persecutors  or  even  perhaps  their  children.  Neverthe¬ 
less,  this  does  not  afford  a  sufficient  explanation  for  the 
popular  belief  which  has  its  real  origin  in  the  wide¬ 
spread  conviction  that  the  Jew  was  irresistibly  impelled 
every  year  and  at  the  same  time  to  reproduce  exactly  the 
murder  of  Christ.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  in  the  leg¬ 
endary  acts  of  the  Infant  martyrs  the  victims  are  always 
shown  as  crucified  and  undergoing  the  agony  of  J esus  : 
sometimes  even  they  are  represented  as  wearing  a  crown 
of  thorns  and  with  their  sides  pierced.  To  this  general 
belief  there  were  added  the  accusations,  often  justified, 
which  were  brought  against  the  Jews  as  being  addicted 
to  the  practice  of  magic.  Throughout  the  Middle  Ages 
the  Jew  was  considered  by  the  common  people  as  the 
magician  par  excellence.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  a  number 
of  Jews  did  devote  themselves  to  magic.  We  find  many 
formulas  of  exorcism  in  the  Talmud,  and  the  demonology 
both  of  the  Talmud  and  the  Kabbala  is  very  compli¬ 
cated  Now  it  is  well  known  the  blood  played  always 
a  very  important  part  in  the  arts  of  sorcery.  In  Chal¬ 
dean  magic,  it  was  of  the  utmost  consequence  ;  in  Persia 
it  was  considered  as  a  means  of  redemption,  and  it  de- 


323 


livered  all  those  who  submitted  themselves  to  the  prac¬ 
tices  of  Taurobolus  and  Kriobolus.  The  Middle  Ages 
were  haunted  by  the  idea  of  blood  as  they  were  haunted 
by  the  idea  of  gold  ;  for  the  alchemist,  for  the  enchanter 
blood  was  the  medium  through  which  the  astral  light 
could  work.  The  elemental  spirits,  according  to  the 
magicians,  utilized  outpoured  blood  in  fashioning  a  body 
for  themselves,  and  it  is  in  this  sense  that  Paracelsus 
speaks  when  he  says  that  “the  blood  lost  by  them  brought 
into  being  phantoms  and  larvae/’  To  blood,  and  espec¬ 
ially  to  the  blood  of  a  virgin,  unheard  of  powers  were  as¬ 
signed.  Blood  was  the  curer,  the  redeemer,  the  pre¬ 
server;  it  was  useful  in  the  search  for  the  Philosopher’s 
Stone,  in  the  composition  of  potions,  and  in  the  practice 
of  enchantments.  Now  it  is  quite  probable,  certain,  in 
fact,  that  Jewish  magicians  may  have  sacrificed  children, 
and  thence  the  genesis  of  ritual  murder.  The  isolated  acts 
of  certain  magicians  were  attributed  to  them  in  their 
character  as  Jews.  It  was  maintained  that  the  Jewish 
religion  which  approved  of  the  Crucifixion  of  Christ, 
prescribed  in  addition  the  shedding  of  Christian  blood; 
and  the  Talmud  and  the  Ivabbala  were  zealously  searched 
for  text  that  might  be  made  to  justify  such  a  thesis. 
Such  investigations  have  succeeded  only  through  deliber¬ 
ate  misinterpretation,  as  in  the  Middle  Ages,  or  through 
actual  falsifications  like  those  recently  committed  by  Dr. 
Rohling,  and  proven  spurious  by  Delitzch.  The  result, 
therefore,  is  this,  that  whatever  the  facts  brought  for¬ 
ward,  they  cannot  prove  that  the  murder  of  children 
constituted,  or  still  constitutes,  a  part  of  the  Jewish 
ritual  anv  more  than  the  acts  of  the  maréchal  dc  Betz 


324 


and  of  the  sacrilegious  priests  who  practised  the  “black 
mass”  would  prove  that  the  Church  recommends  in  its 
books  assassination  and  human  sacrifice. 

Are  there  still  in  existence  in  the  East  sects  maintain¬ 
ing  such  practices  ?  It  is  possible.1  Do  J ews  constitute 
a  part  of  such  societies?  There  is  nothing  to  support 
such  a  contention.  The  general  accusation  of  ritual 
murder,  therefore,  is  shown  to  be  utterly  baseless.  The 
murder  of  children,  I  speak  of  cases  where  murder  was 
actually  proved,  and  these  are  very  rare,2  can  be  attrib¬ 
uted  only  to  vengeance  or  to  the  practices  of  magicians, 
practices  which  were  no  more  peculiar  to  Jews  than  to 
Christians. 

The  persistence  of  these  accusations  against  the  Jews 
is  significant,  in  that  it  shows  what  old  leaven  of  hatred 
still  lies  in  the  souls  of  the  people  against  the  murderers 
of  Christ.  For  it  stands  to  reason  that  a  Christian  anti- 
Semite  does  not  believe  that  the  J ew  of  the  present  time 
who  has  abandoned  his  ancient  customs,  the  Jew  whom 


1  In  1814  a  Christian  sect  arose  in  Bavaria,  known  as  the 
Brothers  and  Sisters  of  Prayer,  the  members  of  which  brought 
human  sacrifices  to  God.  The  founder  of  this  sect  was  called 
Poeschl.  In  Switzerland,  in  1815,  a  certain  Joseph  Ganz, 
founded  a  similar  association,  to  which  he  gave  the  same  name, 
and  which  practised  the  same  rites. 

2  Consult  the  report  of  Ganganelli,  afterwards  Pope  Clement 
XIV,  which,  after  an  investigation  into  the  charges  of  ritual 
murder  brought  against  the  Jews,  arrives  at  the  conclusion  of 
their  absolute  falsity.  ( Revue  des  Etudes  Juives ,  April- June, 
1889).  It  may  be  observed  here  that  the  bodies  of  children 
murdered  for  the  purpose  of  magical  practices  were  never  found, 
the  magicians  having  prudently  burnt  them. 


325 


ne  rubs  up  against  in  the  street  every  day,  really  makes 
use  of  the  blood  of  little  children  at  certain  periods  and 
for  his  own  welfare.  The  real  feeling  is  that  he  belongs 
to  a  race  which,  through  hatred  of  the  name  of  Jesus, 
has  prescribed  ritual  murder,  and  the  antisémite  is  ready 
to  declare  that  if  the  enlightened  Jew  has  abandoned 
these  abominable  and  obsolete  customs,  he  has  neverthe¬ 
less  preserved  the  feeling  which  made  them  possible.  He 
no  longer  transpierces  the  Host,  to  make  it  shed  blood, 
but  he  attacks  Christ  in  attacking  His  Church  ;  he  is  per¬ 
petually  plotting  the  destruction  of  the  Christian  faith, 
he  is  busily  planting  the  seeds  of  disorder,  and  he  brings 
doubt  upon  the  spirits  of  men.  How  much  truth  is  there 
in  these  statements?  It  cannot  be  denied  that  the  Or¬ 
thodox  Jew  has  certain  prejudices  against  the  Chris¬ 
tian,  but  have  not  the  Christians  the  very  same  preju¬ 
dices  against  him?  Hay,  more,  do  not  these  feel¬ 
ings  prevail  between  Protestants  and  Catholics?  It 
is  precisely  the  Orthodox  Jew  who  is  an  element  of 
conservatism.  M.  Anatole  Leroy-Beaulieu  was  right 
in  saying:  “Is  it  the  Jew  of  Poland,  of  Russia,  or 
of  Roumania  that  appears  to  you  as  a  fabricator  of 
revolution?  Look  at  him.  Is  it  he  or  the  like  of  him 
that  has  succeeded  in  impelling  the  modern  world  into 
untrodden  ways?  Is  it  him  we  suspect  of  imperilling 
Christian  civilization  ?  Poor  wretch  ;  for  that,  he  is  too 
degraded,  too  poor,  too  ignorant,  too  indifferent  to  our 
religious  and  political  quarrels.  Question  him;  he  will 
not  understand  you:  but  that  is  not  all.  He  is  in  ad¬ 
dition  too  much  of  a  Jew,  too  religious,  too  devout,  too 
faithful  to  tradition;  in  a  word,  too  conservative/71 


326 


Among  the  nations  of  the  West,  the  orthodox  Jew  like¬ 
wise  affords  evidences  of  his  conservatism.  He  holds 
to  the  law  and  to  the  regulations  of  society.  He  knows 
how  to  reconcile  his  Judaism  with  a  spirit  of  patriotism, 
which  in  its  excess  amounts  at  times  almost  to  Jingoism. 
As  we  have  seen,  it  was  only  a  minority  of  emancipated 
Jews  who  took  part  in  the  French  Eevolution.  These 
emancipated  Jews,  even  though  they  might  abandon 
their  faith,  could  not  for  all  that  cease  to  be  J ews.  And, 
indeed,  how  could  they  have  done  otherwise?  By  em¬ 
bracing  Christianity,  it  is  said,  a  course  of  action  fol¬ 
lowed  by  some,  but  from  which  the  majority  have  re¬ 
coiled,  as  merely  hypocrisy  on  their  part,  inasmuch  as 
the  emancipated  Jew  speedily  arrives  at  a  state  of  irré¬ 
ligion.  They  have  therefore  remained  Jews  by  apathy. 
All  those  revolutionaries  of  the  first  half  of  the  nine¬ 
teenth  century,  of  whom  I  have  spoken,  were  brought  up 
in  Judaism,  and  if  they  abandoned  Judaism  in  the  sense 
that  they  no  longer  practised  it,  they  remained  its  ad¬ 
herents  in  retaining  the  spirit  of  their  nation. 

The  emancipated  Jew,  being  no  longer  bound  by  the 
faith  of  his  ancestors,  and  owning  no  ties  with  the  old 
forms  of  a  society  in  the  midst  of  which  he  had  lived  an 
outcast,  has  become  in  modern  nations  a  veritable 
breeder  of  revolutions.  Now  it  has  happened  that  the 
emancipated  Jew  has  drawn  perceptibly  nearer  to  the 
Christian  unbeliever  ;  but  instead  of  observing  that  the 
Christian  has  allied  himself  with  the  Jew,  because  he, 
too,  like  the  Jew,  has  lost  his  religion,  the  antisémites 
would  have  us  believe  that  the  Jew,  by  his  very  contact, 
has  undermined  the  faith  of  the  Christians  who  have 


m  — 


joined  him.  The  Jews,  therefore,  are  made  responsible 
for  the  disappearance  of  religions  belief,  and  the  general 
decay  of  faith  ;  and  in  doing  so,  moreover,  the  antisémite 
does  not  distinguish  between  the  Jew  who  is  still  faith¬ 
ful  to  his  religion  and  the  emancipated  Jew.  To  the 
impartial  observer,  however,  it  is  not  the  Jew  that  is  de¬ 
stroying  Christianity.  The  Christian  religion  is  disap¬ 
pearing  like  the  J ewish  religion,  like  all  religions,  which 
we  may  now  observe  in  their  slow  agony.  It  is  passing 
away  under  the  blows  of  reason  and  of  science.  It  is 
dying  a  natural  death,  because  it  essentially  was  in  har¬ 
mony  with  only  one  period  of  civilization,  and  because 
the  further  we  advance,  the  less  in  harmony  it  is  with 
changing  conditions.  From  day  to  day  our  yearning 
for  the  irrational  and  our  need  of  the  supernatural  is 
disappearing,  and  with  them  our  need  for  religion,  es¬ 
pecially  for  the  rites  of  religion  :  for  those  even  who  be¬ 
lieve  in  God,  do  not  believe  in  the  necessity  nor  in  the 
efficacy  of  worship. 

Has  the  Jew  taken  part  in  this  unfolding  of  the  mod¬ 
ern  spirit  ?  Certainly  he  has,  but  he  is  by  no  means  the 
creator  of  it,  nor  even  responsible  for  it,  for  he  has 
merely  brought  an  insignificant  stone  to  the  edifice 
which  the  ages  have  built  up.  Wipe  the  Jew  out  of  ex¬ 
istence,  the  decadence  of  Catholicism  or  Protestantism 
will  not  be  retarded  in  the  least.  If  the  J ew  gives  us  an 
impression  to  the  contrary,  it  is  because  he  has  played 
a  very  great  role  in  Germany,  in  Austria,  in  France,  and 
in  Italy,  in  the  history  of  modern  liberalism,  and  liber¬ 
alism  has  advanced  hand  in  hand  with  anti-clericalism. 
The  Jew  has  indeed  been  an  anti-clerical.  He  prepared 


328 


the  way  for  the  Kulturkampf  in  Germany,  he  supported 
the  Ferry  laws  in  France.  The  general  belief  is  that 
the  Jew  was  a  liberal  because  he  was  an  anti-Christian, 
whereas  the  contrary  is  true.  From  this  point  of  view 
it  is  only  just  to  admit  that  the  Jewish  Liberals  have 
been  hurtful  to  Christianity,  or,  at  least,  that  they  have 
been  the  allies  of  those  whose  activity  was  inimical  to 
Christianity.  For  the  antisémite  and  conservative,  to 
de-Christianize  is  to  denationalize,  which  argues  a  con- 
fuson  of  thought  on  their  part,  in  that  they  make  nation 
and  state  synonymous.  Anti-clerical  liberalism  does  not 
denationalize.  It  does  destroy  the  old  Christian  state. 
But  the  nineteenth  century  witnessed  the  last  effort  on 
the  part  of  the  Christian  state  to  retain  its  dominance. 
The  conception  of  a  feudal  state,  based  upon  unity  of  be¬ 
lief,  and  in  the  advantages  of  which  heretics  and  unbe¬ 
lievers  could  not  participate,  is  opposed  to  the  notion  of 
a  neutral  and  secular  state,  upon  which  the  greater  num¬ 
ber  of  political  entities  are  at  present  based. .  Thus  anti¬ 
semitism  represents  one  phase  of  the  struggle  going  on 
between  the  two  types  of  state  of  which  we  have  just 
spoken.  The  Jew  is  the  living  testimony  of  the  disap¬ 
pearance  of  that  state  which  had  its  foundation  in  theo¬ 
logical  principles  and  the  restoration  of  which  is  the 
dream  of  the  Christian  antisémite.  The  day  when  the 
Jew  was  first  admitted  to  civil  rights  the  Christian  state 
was  in  danger.  This  is  true,  and  the  antisémites  who 
say  that  the  Jews  have  destroyed  the  idea  of  State  could 
more  justly  say  that  the  entrance  of  the  J ew  into  society 
marked  the  destruction  of  the  State,  meaning  by  State 
the  Christian  State.  In  the  eyes  of  the  conservative, 


329 


nothing  indeed  is  so  significant  as  the  presence  of  the 
J ew  in  modern  society  ;  and  by  a  very  common  mode  of 
reasoning  they  have  made  a  cause  out  of  that  which  is 
only  an  effect,  because  this  effect  in  its  turn  acts,  it  is 
true,  as  a  cause. 

These,  then,  in  brief,  are  the  political  and  religious 
mainsprings  of  antisemitism.  First  and  fundamental  are 
hereditary  dislike  and  prejudice;  then,  as  a  result  of 
these  prejudices,  an  exaggerated  conception  of  the  role 
which  the  Jews  have  played  in  the  development  and  or¬ 
ganization  of  modern  society  ;  a  conception  in  which  the 
Jews  appear  as  the  representatives  of  the  revolutionary 
spirit,  against  the  spirit  of  established  order;  of  change 
against  tradition;  a  conception  which  makes  them  re¬ 
sponsible  in  this  age  of  transition  for  the  fall  of  anti¬ 
quated  institutions  and  the  disappearance  of  ancient 
beliefs. 


—  330  — 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

THE  ECONOMIC  CAUSES  OF  ANTISEMITISM. 

Economic  Antisemitism. — The  Case  Against  the  Jew. 
— The  Moral  Charge. —  The  Dishonest  Jew. — Jew¬ 
ish  Astuteness  and  Bad  Faith. — The  Corrupting 
Influence  of  the  Talmud. — Restrictive  Legislation 
and  Jewish  Fraud. — Mercantilism  and  Usury  as 
Causes  of  Degradation. — Money  and  the  Decline  of 
Morality. — The  Economic  Charge. — The  Jew  and 
Present  Social  Conditions. — The  Importance  of  the 
Jews  in  Capitalistic  Society. — The  Jew  in  Finance 
and  in  Industry. — The  Jew  as  the  Possessor  of  Cap¬ 
ital. — Disadvantages  under  Which  the  Jew  Labors 
under  Present  Conditions. — The  Jewish  Proletar¬ 
ians  in  Eurone  and  America. — The  Jews  of  the 

A 

Middle  Class. — The  Relative  Supremacy  of  the  Jew. 
— Causes  of  Such  Supremacy. — Jewish  Solidarity 
versus  Middle  Class  Individualism. — The  J ewish 
Brotherhood. — Its  Origin  and  Antiquity. — The 
Synagogues. — The  Middle  Ages. — The  Ghettoes. — 
Modern  Times. — The  Kahal  in  the  Countries  of  the 
East. — Minorities  in  Western  Europe  and  the  Soli¬ 
darity  of  Classes. — Opposition  Between  Different 
Forms  of  Capital  as  a  Cause  of  Antisemitism. — 
Agricultural  Capital  versus  Industrial  Capital. — 
The  Jewish  Stockbroker  and  the  Small  Trader. — 
Competition  and  Antisemitism. — Competition  in  the 


331  — 


Ranks  of  Capital  and  in  the  Labor  Market. — Griev¬ 
ances  Against  the  Jews  and  Economic  Antisemi¬ 
tism. — Antisemitism  and  the  Intestine  Struggles 
of  Capital. 

After  being  assailed  as  a  Semite,  as  a  stranger,  as  a 
revolutionist,  as  an  enemy  to  Christianity,  the  Jew  is 
attacked  as  a  factor  in  economic  affairs.  This  has  been 
the  case  ever  since  the  dispersion.  Already  before  our 
era  the  Romans  and  the  Greeks  were  jealous  of  the  privi¬ 
leges  which  permitted  the  Jews  to  carry  on  trade  under 
more  favorable  conditions  than  the  rest  of  the  people,1 
and  during  the  Middle  Ages  the  usurer  was  hated  as 
much  as,  if  not  more  than,  the  murderer  of  Christ.2  The 
condition  of  the  Jews  was  changed  at  the  end  of  the 
eighteenth  century;  and  so  favorable  was  the  change  to 
them'  that  it  tended  to  confirm,  if  not  to  increase,  the 
feeling  of  antipathy  with  which  they  were  regarded. 
Economic  antisemitism  to-day  is  stronger  than  it  ever 
was,  for  the  reason  that  to-day,  more  than  ever,  the  Jew 
appears  powerful  and  rich.  Formerly  he  was  not  seen  : 
he  remained  hidden  in  his  Ghetto,  far  from  Christian 
eyes.  He  had  but  one  care,  to  conceal  his  wealth,  that 
wealth  of  which  tradition  regarded  him  as  the  gatherer, 
and  not  the  proprietor.  The  day  he  was  freed  from  his 
disabilities,  the  day  the  restrictions  put  to  his  activities 
fell  away,  the  Jew  showed  himself  in  public.  Indeed,  he 
showed  himself  with  ostentation.  He  wished,  after  cen¬ 
turies  of  imprisonment,  after  years  of  oppression,  to  ap- 


1  Chap.  ii. 

2  Chap.  v. 


332 


pear  a  man;  and  he  had  the  naive  vanity  of  the  savage. 
That  was  his  way  of  re-acting  upon  centuries  of  humilia¬ 
tion.  On  the  eve  of  the  French  Revolution,  they  saw 
him  humble,  timid,  an  object  of  general  contempt,  ex¬ 
posed  to  insult  and  injury.  They  found  him  after  the 
tempest,  free,  liberated  from  every  constraint,  and  from 
a  slave,  become  a  master.  Such  a  rapid  exaltation  was 
offensive.  People  were  affronted  by  the  wealth  which 
the  Jews  had  now  attained  the  right  to  pile  up,  and  re¬ 
course  was  had  at  once  to  the  old  accusation  of  the  fa¬ 
thers,  the  charge  that  the  Jew  was  an  enemy  to  society. 
The  wealth  of  the  Jew,  it  was  said,  is  gained  at  the  ex¬ 
pense  of  the  Christian.  It  is  acquired  through  decep¬ 
tion,  through  fraud,  through  oppression,  by  all  means 
and  principally  by  detestable  means.  This  is  what  I 
shall  call  the  moral  charge  of  the  Antisémites,  and  it  may 
be  summed  up  thus  :  the  Jew  is  more  dishonest  than  the 
Christian  ;  he  is  entirely  unscrupulous,  a  stranger  to  loy¬ 
alty  and  candor. 

Is  this  charge  well  founded  ?  It  was  true  and  still  is 
true  in  all  those  countries  where  the  Jew  is  kept  outside 
of  society;  where  he  receives  only  the  traditional  Tal¬ 
mudic  education  ;  where  he  is  exposed  to  persecution,  to 
insult,  and  to  oppression;  where  people  refuse  to  recog¬ 
nize  in  him  the  dignity  and  the  independence  of  the  hu¬ 
man  being.  The  moral  condition  of  the  Jew  is  due 
partly  to  himself,  and  partly  to  exterior  circumstances. 
His  soul  has  been  moulded  by  the  law  which  he  imposed 
on  himself,  and  the  law  which  has  been  forced  upon  him. 
Throughout  the  centuries  he  lived  twice  a  slave  :  he  was 
the  bondman  of  the  law,  and  the  bondman  of  everyone. 


333 


He  was  a  pariah,  but  a  pariah  whom  teachers  and  guides 
united  to  keep  in  a  state  of  servitude  more  complete  than 
the  ancient  bondage  of  Egypt.  From  without  a  thou¬ 
sand  restrictions  impeded  his  way,  arrested  his  develop¬ 
ment,  restrained  his  activity;  within  he  was  confronted 
by  an  elaborate  system  of  prohibitions.  Outside  the 
Ghetto  he  experienced  the  constraint  of  the  law;  within 
the  Ghetto  he  suffered  the  oppression  of  the  Talmud.  If 
he  attempted  to  escape  from  the  one,  a  thousand  punish¬ 
ments  awaited  him;  if  he  ventured  to  depart  from  the 
other,  he  exposed  himself  to  the  Cherem,  that  awful  ex- 
communication  which  left  him  alone  to  the  world.  It 
would  have  been  vain  to  attack  these  two  hostile  powers 
boldly;  and  therefore  the  Jew  attempted  to  triumph  over 
them  by  guile.  Both  forms  of  oppression  developed  in 
him  the  instinct  of  cunning.  He  attained  to  an  une¬ 
qualed  talent  for  diplomacy,  to  a  subtlety  rarely  found. 
His  natural  finesse  increased,  but  it  was  employed  for 
base  purposes — to  deceive  a  tyrannical  God  and  despotic 
rulers.  The  Talmud  and  anti- Judaic  legislation  united 
to  corrupt  the  Jew  to  his  very  depths.  Impelled  by  his 
teachers,  on  the  one  hand,  by  hostile  legislation  on  the 
other,  by  many  social  causes  besides,1  to  the  exclusive 
occupation  of  commerce  and  of  usury,  the  Jew  became 
degraded.  The  pursuit  of  wealth  ceaselessly  prosecuted, 
debauched  him,  weakened  the  voice  of  conscience  within 
him,  taught  him  habits  of  fraud.  In  this  war  of  self- 
preservation  which  he  was  forced  to  carry  on  against  the 
world  and  against  the  secular  and  religious  law,  he  could 
conquer  only  by  intrigue,  and  the  unhappy  wretch,  given 


1  Chap.  v. 


334 


over  to  humiliations,  to  insults,  forced  to  bow  his  head 
under  blows  and  curses  and  persecution,  could  avenge 
himself  on  his  enemies,  his  tormentors,  his  executioners 
only  by  guile.  Robbery  and  bad  faith  became  his  weap¬ 
ons  ;  they  were  the  only  weapons  of  which  he  could  pos¬ 
sibly  make  use,  and  therefore  he  exerted  himself  to  elab¬ 
orate  them,  to  sharpen  them,  and  to  conceal  them. 

When  the  walls  of  the  Ghetto  were  overthrown,  the 
Jew,  such  as  he  had  been  made  by  the  Talmud  and  the 
legislative  and  social  restrictions  imposed  upon  him,  did 
not  change  all  at  once.  Upon  the  morrow  of  the  Revolu¬ 
tion  he  lived  just  as  he  had  lived  upon  its  eve,  nor  did  he 
alter  his  customs,  his  manners,  and,  above  all,  his  spirit, 
as  quickly  as  his  condition  in  life  had  been  altered.  Liber¬ 
ated,  he  retained  the  soul  of  a  slave,  that  soul  which  he 
is  losing  day  by  day  as  one  by  one  the  memories  of  his 
degradation  are  disappearing.  To-day,  in  order  to  find 
the  Jew  as  the  antisémites  represent  him,  we  must  go  to 
Russia,  to  Roumania,  to  Poland,  where  discriminating 
laws  still  rage  in  full  force,  or  to  Hungary,  Galicia  and 
Bohemia,  where  the  Jewish  schools  retain  their  exclusive 
domination.  And  if  in  Western  Europe  there  are  Jews 
of  a  certain  category  among  those  engaged  in  trade  and 
speculation  who  are,  by  force  of  inherited  instinct,  still 
given  to  cunning,  to  intrigue  and  even  to  deception,  they 
are  no  worse  in  this  respect  than  the  traders  and  specu¬ 
lators  of  the  Christian  faith,  whom  long  experience  in 
business  has  rendered  unscrupulous.  To  such  an  asser¬ 
tion,  however,  the  antisémites  always  have  this  answer 
ready:  “The  Jews  have  perverted  the  Christians,  and 
even  though  it  be  confessed  that  the  class  of  capitalists, 


335 


entrepreneurs  and  traders  shows  itself  harsh,  cruel, 
grasping,  faithless  towards  the  exploited  class,  the  fault 
rests  with  the  Jews,  who  are  responsible  for  present  so¬ 
cial  conditions,  nay,  more,  who  are  the  very  cause  of  such 
conditions.”  This  is  really  the  great  economic  charge 
against  the  Jews. 

But  here,  too,  the  antisémites  are  the  victims  of  an 
error.  The  Jew  is  not  the  cause  of  the  present  state  of 
things  which  is,  in  reality,  the  result  of  a  long  evolu¬ 
tion.  It  is  true  that  he  has  played  his  part  in  the  eco¬ 
nomic  revolution  which  has  resulted  in  establishing  the 
supremacy  of  the  bourgeoisie;  but  far  from  being  the 
cause,  he  has  been  only  one  of  the  factors  that  have 
brought  about  such  a  transformation,  by  no  means  the 
sole  factor,  nor  even  the  principal  one.1 

I  have  already  shown2  how  in  the  course  of  time  the 
bourgeoisie  found  in  the  Jew  a  powerful  and  marvel¬ 
ously  endowed  ally.  During  long  centuries,  while  soci¬ 
ety  was  still  plunged  in  the  barbarism  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  the  Jew,  the  trader  of  old,  well  armed,  well  pro¬ 
vided  with  a  fine  mental  equipment,  and  rich  in  the  pos¬ 
session  of  ages  of  experience,  was  either  the  representa¬ 
tive  of  capital  as  employed  in  commerce  and  in  usury,  or 
else  aided  in  its  creation.  Nevertheless,  these  forms  of 
capital  did  not  attain  their  greatest  influence  until  the 
labor  of  centuries  had  prepared  the  way  for  their  domi¬ 
nation  and  had  transformed  them  into  industrial  and 
bonded  capital.  To  accomplish  this  Capital  needed 
those  two  great  movements,  the  Crusades  and  the 


1  Chap.  v. 

2  Chap.  ix. 


336 


discovery  of  America,  followed  by  the  manifold 
colonial  enterprises  of  Spain,  of  Portugal, 
of  the  Netherlands,  of  England,  and  of 
France,  all  the  activity,  in  fact,  of  the  age  of  commer¬ 
cial  development.  It  needed  the  establishment  of  public 
credit  and  the  rise  of  great  banking  institutions.  It 
needed  the  rise  of  manufactures  and  the  scientific  dis¬ 
coveries  which  brought  about  the  invention  and  the  per¬ 
fection  of  machinery.  It  needed  all  the  elaborate  legis¬ 
lation  looking  towards  the  restriction  of  the  laborer’s 
rights  and  wages,  until  the  moment  came  when  the  pro¬ 
letariat  was  deprived  even  of  the  right  of  association;  it 
needed  all  that  and  many  other  causes  besides,  causes  his¬ 
toric,  religious  and  moral,  in  order  to  make  present-day 
society  what  it  is.  Those  who  maintain  that  the  Jews 
are  the  sole  cause  of  the  present  state  of  things  succeed 
only  in  establishing  their  own  absurdly  marvelous  igno¬ 
rance. 

Of  course,  as  I  have  just  said,  the  part  played  by  the 
Jews  in  the  development  of  modern  society,  was  impor¬ 
tant,  but  its  true  character  is  very  little  known,  or,  at 
least,  very  imperfectly  known,  and  that  especially  to  the 
antisémites.  It  is  not  to  this  very  elementary  knowledge 
of  the  economic  history  of  the  Jews  that  antisemitism 
must  be  atributed.  Our  knowledge  of  the  Jews  since 
their  emancipation  is  more  complete;  in  France,  under 
the  Restoration  and  the  July  Monarchy,  they  stood  at 
the  head  of  the  financial  and  industrial  enterprise,  and 
were  among  the  founders  of  the  great  canal,  railway  and 
insurance  companies.  In  Germany  their  activity  was  ex¬ 
ceedingly  great.  They  were  at  the  bottom  of  all  the  leg- 


337 


islation  favorable  to  the  carrying  on  of  banking  and  ex¬ 
change,  the  practice  of  usury  and  speculation.  It  was 
they  who  profited  by  the  abolition,  in  1867,  of  the  ancient 
laws  limiting  the  rate  of  interest.  They  were  active  in 
bringing  about  the  enactment  of  the  law  of  June  1870, 
which  exempted  stock  companies  from  government  su¬ 
pervision.  After  the  Franco-German  War,  they  were 
among  the  boldest  speculators,  and  at  a  time  when  Ger¬ 
man  capitalists  were  carried  away  by  a  passion  for  the 
creation  of  industrial  combinations,  they  acted  a  no  less 
important  part  than  had  the  Jews  of  France,  from  1830 
to  1848.1  Their  activity  persisted  until  the  financial 
panic  of  1873,  when  the  country  squires  and  the  small 
traders  who  had  been  ruined  by  the  excesses  of  this 
Gründer  Période  (the  era  of  promoters)  in  which  the  Jew 
had  played  the  most  important  part,  gave  themselves  up 
to  the  most  violent  antisemitism,  such,  indeed,  as  pro¬ 
ceeds  only  from  injured  interests. 

Once  the  important  part  played  by  the  Jews  of  this 
period  had  been  proven,  and,  indeed,  their  importance 
was  undeniable,  people  proceeded  to  the  conclusion  that 
the  Jew  was  the  possessor  of  capital  par  excellence .  This 
became  an  added  cause  of  hatred  against  him.  The 
Jews,  it  was  asserted,  held  everything,  and  the  word  Jew, 
after  having  been  a  synonym  for  knave,  malefactor  and 
usurer,  came  to  be  used  as  equivalent  to  rich.  Every 
Jew  is  a  capitalist;  such  is  the  common  belief.  The 
error  of  course  is  deep.  The  vast  majority  of  Jews, 
nearly  seven-eighths  of  the  total  number,  in  fact,  live  in 
extreme  poverty.  In  Russia,  in  Galicia,  in  Roumania, 


1  Otto  Glagau,  loc.  cit. 


338 


Servia  and  Turkey,  their  destitution  is  appalling.  For 
the  most  part  they  are  artisans,  and  as  such  they  suffer 
equally  with  Christian  wage-earners  from  present  social 
conditions.  They  are,  indeed,  among  the  most  disinher¬ 
ited  of  the  proletariat.  In  the  East  End  of  London,  in 
that  congested  Jewish  population  composed  almost  en¬ 
tirely  of  refugees  from  Poland,  Jewish  tailors,  working 
twelve  hours  a  day  in  the  sweatshops,  earn  on  an  average 
twelve  cents  an  hour.  The  majority,  moreover,  find  em¬ 
ployment  only  during  three  days  in  the  week,  a  large 
number  work  only  from  two  to  three  days  a  week,  and  at 
all  times  there  is  an  unemployed  population  of  from  ten 
to  fifteen  thousand  Jews  living  in  a  state  of  utter  misery, 
verging  on  starvation.  In  New  York,  they  are  counted 
by  the  hundred  thousand,  and  before  the  organization  of 
the  tailors’  unions,  many  were  forced  to  work  twenty 
hours  a  day  for  five  or  six  dollars  a  week.  Since  the 
foundation  of  the  unions,  however,  though  their  earnings 
may  not  have  increased,  the  hours  of  labor  have  been  re¬ 
duced  to  eighteen  hours  per  day,  and  in  some  factories  to 
sixteen.1  In  Russia  their  condition  is  still  worse.  In  Yilna, 
Jewish  women  employed  in  the  knitting  mills  receive 
forty  kopecks  (the  kopeck  is  equal  to  one-half  of  a  cent) 
for  a  day  of  fourteen  hours.  Fifty  kopecks  is  the  average 
wage  for  men  in  all  of  the  trades,  for  a  day  varying  from 
fourteen  to  twenty  hours.  The  immense  majority  of 
working  men  crowded  together  within  the  cities  of  the 
Pale  can  find  no  market  at  all  for  their  labor.2  In  Gali- 

1  Miss  I.  Van  Etten,  “The  Russian  Jews  as  Immigrants,”  The 
Forum ,  April,  1893. 

*  Leo  Errera,  The  Russian  Jews. 


339 


cia  the  condition  of  the  working  population  is  no  better, 
and  the  same  is  true  of  Roumania. 

There  remain,  then,  about  two  million  Jews  in  West¬ 
ern  Europe  and  in  the  United  States,  who  may  be  said 
to  belong  to  the  middle  class.  Of  these  two  millions, 
however,  it  must  be  admitted  that  if  they  were  of  very 
little  importance  a  hundred  years  ago,  they  are  of  very 
great  importance  to-day.  Through  their  wealth,  through 
their  education,  through  their  relations  to  one  another, 
they  occupy  a  place  far  out  of  proportion  to  their  num¬ 
bers.  Compared  with  the  general  body  of  the  population 
they  are  but  a  handful,  and  yet  their  position  in  life  is 
such  that  they  are  to  be  seen  everywhere,  and  in  number 
seem  to  be  legion.  It  is  true  that  we  must  avoid  the 
comon  error  of  comparing  them  with  the  total  popula¬ 
tion  of  any  country,  inasmuch  as  they  do  not  generally 
live  outside  of  towns,  but  confine  themselves  to  the  cities 
where  they  play  a  correspondingly  important  part.  If 
we  would  arrive  at  some  exact  statistical  basis  we  must 
compare  them  to  the  Christian  population  of  their  own 
class,  that  is,  to  the  bourgeoisie  of  commerce,  industry 
and  finance.  And  yet  even  when  we  reduce  the  compari¬ 
son  to  these  two  factors,  the  Jew  versus  the  bourgeoisie,  it 
is  still  in  favor  of  the  Jew.1.  Wherefore,  then,  this  pre- 

1  It  is  customary  to  compare  the  two  million  Jews,  who  may 
be  called  the  possessors  of  capital  in  various  degrees,  to  the  total 
mass  of  Christian  inhabitants,  overlooking  the  fact  that  the 
vast  majority  of  Jewrs  is  composed  of  laborers  and  artisans.  If 
we  wish  to  consider  the  Jews  as  a  nation,  a  nation  with  no  deter¬ 
mined  geographical  boundaries,  we  must  endeavor  to  ascertain 
whether  there  are  not  among  them  both  a  class  of  wage-earners 
and  class  of  capitalists,  as  indeed  I  have  already  proven,  and  then 
to  compare  the  class  of  Jewish  capitalists  with  the  class  of 


340 


ponderance?  Some  Jews  are  in  the  habit  of  ascribing 
their  economic  supremacy  to  their  intellectual  superior¬ 
ity.  This  boast  of  Jewish  superiority  is  not  altogether 
true,  or,  at  least,  requires  explanation.  In  the  present 
bourgeois  society,  which  is  founded  upon  the  exploita¬ 
tion  of  capital  and  upon  exploitation  by  capital,  where 
the  power  of  wealth  is  supreme,  where  stock- jobbing  and 
speculation  are  all-powerful,  the  Jew  is  certainly  better 
equipped  for  success  than  any  other  body.  Though  he  may 
have  been  degraded  by  his  exclusive  devotion  to  com¬ 
merce  through  the  ages,  his  experience  has  nevertheless 
endowed  him  with  certain  qualities  which  have  become 
of  surpassing  value  in  the  new  organization  of  society. 
He  is  cold  and  calculating,  supple  and  energetic,  perse¬ 
vering  and  patient,  clear  and  exact,  qualities  which  he 
has  inherited  all  from  his  ancestors,  the  money  changers 
and  traders  of  mediaeval  times.  When  he  devotes  him¬ 
self  to  commerce  or  to  finance,  he  naturally  profits  by 
the  educaton  wdiich  his  ancestors  have  undergone 
through  centuries,  an  education  which  has  rendered  him, 
perhaps,  not  more  suited  for  certain  pursuits  as  his  van¬ 
ity  suggests,  but  certainly  more  adaptable  to  them.  In 
the  present  industrial  struggle,  he  is  better  endowed, 
man  for  man, — I  am  speaking  in  general  terms — than 
his  competitors,  and  all  things  being  equal,  he  must  suc¬ 
ceed  because  of  his  superior  equipment.  He  has  no  need 
to  make  use  of  fraud,  or,  at  least,  to  make  more  use  of  it 
than  his  neighbors,  since  his  personal  and  inherited 

Christian  capitalists.  In  this  manner  only  can  we  attain  a  cor¬ 
rect  formula  for  the  purpose  of  statistical  comparison  and  a 
true  version  of  things. 


341 


qualities  are  sufficient  to  assure  him  the  victory. 

Still  the  possession  of  such  personal  gifts  is  not  suffi¬ 
cient  to  explain  the  preponderance  of  the  Jews.  Among 
the  Christians,  too,  there  are  ancient  merchant  families  ; 
a  section  of  the  bourgeoisie  has  inherited  qualities  very 
similar  to  those  of  the  Jews,  and  therefore  it  would 
seem,  should  be  able  to  challenge  the  Jews  successfully. 
The  answer  is  that  there  are  other,  farther  reaching 
causes,  arising  both  from  the  nature  of  the  Jew  and 
from  the  charcater  of  modern  society.  Bourgeois 
society  is  based  entirely  upon  competition  between  man 
and  man  in  the  field  of  the  daily  necessities  of  life.  It 
affords  us  the  spectacle  of  individuals  fighting  bitterly 
one  against  the  other,  of  isolated  units  stubbornly  dis¬ 
puting  the  victory  and  making  use  of  their  own  individ¬ 
ual  resources.  In  this  state  of  society  Darwin’s  prin¬ 
ciple  of  the  struggle  for  life  dominates.  This  spirit 
governs  the  actions  of  every  man,  and  tacitly  it  is  recog¬ 
nized  that  victory  ought  to  belong  to  the  strongest,  to 
him,  that  is,  who  is  best  equipped,  whose  body  and  whose 
spirit  are  most  perfectly  adjusted  to  the  social  conditions 
of  existence.  That  form  of  activity  which  is  based  on 
solidarity,  on  common  action,  and  on  a  common  under¬ 
standing,  is  to  be  found  only  outside  of  this  class. 
Historians,  philosophers  and  economists  unite  in  recog¬ 
nizing  only  the  principle  of  individual  effort.  It  is  only 
against  its  common  enemies,  against  the  proletariat  and 
against  those  who  attack  capital  that  our  capitalistic 
Bourgeoisie  resorts  to  the  principle  of  solidarity.  If  we 
conceive,  then,  in  the  midst  of  such  a  community,  based 
upon  egoistic  action,  associations  of  citizens  strongly 


342 


organized  and  gifted,  animated  for  many  centuries  by 
the  spirit  of  common  action,  and  knowing  by  instinct 
and  experience,  the  advantages  which  they  may  derive 
from  union,  it  is  certain  that  such  organizations  by 
directing  their  activity  towards  the  same  end  as  that  pur¬ 
sued  by  the  scattered  individuals  around  them  will  pos¬ 
sess  such  an  advantage  in  the  struggle  as  to  assure  them 
an  easy  victory.  This  is  just  the  role  which  is  being 
played  by  the  J ews  of  the  middle  class  in  modern  society. 
They  are  desirous  of  winning  the  same  prizes  of  life  as 
the  Christian;  they  enter  the  same  field  of  battle;  they 
have  the  same  ambitions  ;  they  are  just  as  keen,  just  as 
greedy,  just  as  hungry  for  wealth,  just  as  foreign  to  any 
form  of  justice  that  is  not  the  justice  of  their  caste,  or 
that  does  not  defend  them  against  the  classes  they  hold 
in  subjection;  they  are,  to  sum  up,  just  as  immoral  at 
bottom  as  the  Christian  in  the  sense  that  they  consider 
only  the  advantages  which  they  may  obtain  for  them¬ 
selves,  and  that  the  sole  ambition  of  their  lives  is  the 
acquisition  of  material  goods,  of  which  each  hopes  and 
strives  to  obtain  the  maximum.  But  in  this  daily 
struggle,  the  Jew,  who,  personally,  as  we  have  already 
seen,  is  better  endowed  than  his  competitors,  increases 
his  advantage  by  uniting  with  his  co-religionists  pos¬ 
sessed  of  similar  virtues,  and  thus  augments  his  powers 
by  acting  in  common  with  his  brethren;  the  inevitable 
result  being  that  they  out-distance  their  rivals  in  the 
pursuit  of  any  common  end.  In  the  midst  of  a  dis¬ 
united  middle  class,  whose  members  are  engaged  in  a 
perpetual  struggle  against  one  another,  the  Jews  stand 
united  as  one.  This  is  the  secret  of  their  success. 


343 


Their  solidarity  is  all  the  stronger  in  that  it  goes  so  far 
back.  Its  very  existence  is  denied.,  and  yet  it  is  un¬ 
deniable.  The  links  in  the  chain  have  been  forged  in 
the  course  of  ages  until  the  flight  of  centuries  has  made 
man  unconscious  of  their  existence.  It  is  worth  our 
while  to  see  how  this  bond  of  union  was  formed  and 
how  it  was  perpetuated. 

Jewish  solidarity  dates  from  the  Dispersion.  Jewish 
emigrants  and  colonists  took  up  their  residence  in  for¬ 
eign  countries,  and  wherever  they  made  their  home  they 
constituted  a  distinct  society.  Their  communities  cen¬ 
tered  around  their  houses  of  prayer,  which  they  built  in 
every  town  where  they  formed  a  nucleus.  Everywhere 
they  possessed  numerous  important  privileges  (see  Chap¬ 
ters  II  and  III.).  The  Diasporoi  were  invaluable  allies 
of  the  Greeks  in  carrying  on  the  work  of  eastern  coloniza¬ 
tion,  and  strangely  enough  the  Jews  who  adopted  Hellen¬ 
ism,  assisted  in  turn  in  Hellenizing  the  East.  As  a 
recompense  they  were  allowed  to  retain  their  national 
homogeneity,  together  with  full  powers  of  self-govern¬ 
ment.  This  was  the  case  in  Alexandria,  in  Antioch,  in 
Asia  Minor,  and  in  the  Greek  cities  of  Ionia.  In  almost 
every  city  they  constituted  corporations  at  the  head  of 
which  was  an  ethnarch  or  patriarch,  who,  with  the  as¬ 
sistance  of  a  council  of  leaders  and  a  special  tribunal, 
exercised  all  the  powers  of  civil  authority  and  of  justice. 
The  synagogues  were  “veritable  small  republics.”1 
They  were,  in  addition,  the  centres  of  religious  and  pub¬ 
lic  life.  The  Jews  came  together  in  their  synagogues, 
not  only  to  listen  to  the  reading  of  the  Law,  but  also  for 

1  E.  Renan,  Vie  de  Jesus ,  p.  142. 


344 


the  discussion  of  their  private  affairs  and  for  the  pur¬ 
pose  of  exchanging  views  upon  the  general  course  of 
events.  All  the  synagogues  were  closely  connected  in  a 
vast  federation  which  included  within  its  scope  the  en¬ 
tire  ancient  world,  progressing  parallel  with  the  expan¬ 
sion  of  the  Macedonian  power  and  Hellenistic  civiliza¬ 
tion.  They  communicated  with  one  another  by  messen¬ 
gers  and  kept  one  another  in  constant  touch  with  events, 
the  knowledge  of  which  was  likely  to  prove  useful. 
They  sought  one  another’s  counsel  and  rendered  one  an¬ 
other  aid.  At  the  same  time,  of  course,  the  synagogues 
were  bound  together  by  a  powerful  religious  tie.  They 
preserved  their  independence,  but  they  felt  themselves 
sisters.  The  eyes  of  all  Jews  turned  towards  Jerusalem 
and  towards  the  Temple,  to  which  they  sent  their  annual 
tribute,  and  the  love  which  they  felt  for  the  Holy  City, 
the  passion  with  which  they  clung  to  their  faith,  served 
to  bring  to  their  mind  their  common  origin  and  to 
cement  their  union.  The  small  synagogues  of  the 
Grecian  cities  no  less  than  the  powerful  Jewish  colonies 
in  Antioch  and  Alexandria  were  the  creators  of  Jewish 
solidarity,  both  in  its  local  and  its  world-wide  aspects. 
In  every  city  the  Jewish  traveller  could  count  upon  the 
aid  of  the  community  ;  when  he  arrived  as  an  immigrant 
or  as  a  settler,  he  was  received  as  a  brother,  succored  in 
his  need  and  assisted  in  his  designs,  he  was  permitted 
to  take  up  his  home  wherever  he  desired  and  he  enjoyed 
the  protection  of  the  community  which  put  all  its  re¬ 
sources  at  his  disposal.  He  did  not  come  as  a  stranger 
bound  upon  a  difficult  conquest,  but  as  one  well  equipped 
and  with  protectors,  friends,  and  brothers  by  his  side. 


345 


Throughout  Asia  Minor,  the  Archipelago,  Cyrenaica  and 
Egypt,  a  Jew  might  travel  in  perfect  security;  every¬ 
where  he  was  treated  as  a  guest,  everywhere  he  proceeded 
straight  to  the  house  of  prayer,  where  he  was  sure  to  find 
a  welcome.  The  Essenes  carried  on  their  propaganda  in 
the  same  manner.  They,  too,  created  their  little  social 
centres,  little  associations  in  the  very  heart  of  the  Jewish 
communities,  and  in  this  fashion  they  traveled  from  city 
to  city,  at  their  own  free  will  taking  no  thought  of  the 
morrow. 

At  Rome,  where  they  lived  in  considerable  numbers,1 
the  Jews  were  as  firmly  united  as  in  the  cities  of  the 
Orient.  “They  are  bound  together  by  indissoluble 
bonds  by  the  ties  of  loving  sympathy/’  says  Tacitus.* 
Thanks  to  their  solidarity,  they  had  acquired  at 
Rome,  as  in  Alexandria,  such  power  that  politi¬ 
cal  parties  feared  them  and  sought  their  support.  “You 
know,”  says  Cicero,2  “how  great  is  the  multitude  of  the 
Jews,  how  firm  their  union  and  their  sympathy,  how 
striking  their  political  skill  and  their  sway  over  the 
crowd  in  the  assemblies.” 

When  the  Roman  Empire  fell,  when  the  barbarian 
hosts  invaded  the  ancient  world,  and  triumphant  Catho¬ 
licism  entered  upon  its  career  of  expansion,  the  Jewish 
communities  did  not  change.  They  were  still  powerful 
organisms  and  the  activity  of  their  common  life  was  such 
as  to  lend  them  great  powers  of  resistance.  In  the  midst 

1  E.  Renan  estimates  the  number  of  Jews  in  Rome  at  the  time 
of  Nero  at  from  twenty  to  thirty  thousand  (U  Antéchrist,  p.  7, 

note  2). 

♦Hist.  v.  5. 

a  Pro  Flacco*  xxviii. 


346 


of  the  universal  upheaval  they  preserved  their  religious 
and  social  unity,  two  inseparable  bonds  to  which  they 
owe  their  prosperity.  The  members  of  the  Jewish 
synagogues  drew  still  more  closely  together.  It  was 
owing  to  this  mutual  support  that  they  suffered  nothing 
from  the  great  changes  that  were  going  on  about  them. 
For  some  time,  even  after  the  Gothic  and  German  king¬ 
doms  had  been  established  Jewish  communities  preserved 
a  certain  degree  of  self-government.  They  were  placed 
under  a  special  jurisdiction  and  in  the  midst  of  those 
new  sociëties  they  constituted  veritable  trading  corpora¬ 
tions  in  which  none  of  the  ancient  solidarity  was  want¬ 
ing.  In  proportion  as  the  nations  became  more  hostile 
to  the  Jews,  in  proportion  as  persecution  and  oppressive 
legislation  increased,  their  solidarity  increased.  The 
external  and  internal  forces  which  tended  to  imprison 
the  J ews  within  the  narrow  circumference  of  their 
Ghettoes,  only  served  to  foster  the  spirit  of  union  among 
them.  Isolated  from  the  world,  they  only  tightened  the 
bonds  which  held  them  together.  Their  common  life 
nourished  the  desire  for,  and  the  need  of,  fraternal  ac¬ 
tion.  In  other  words,  the  Ghettoes  developed  the  spirit 
of  Jewish  solidarity.  In  addition,  the  synagogues  had 
succeeded  in  preserving  their  authority,  so  that  while  the 
Jews  were  subject  to  the  harsh  laws  of  king  and  of  em¬ 
peror,  they  had  also  a  government  of  their  own,  councils 
of  elders,  and  tribunals,  to  whose  decisions  they  sub¬ 
mitted.  Their  general  synods  forbade,  in  fact,  any  Jew 
under  the  pain  of  anathema,  from  citing  a  fellow  Jew 
before  a  Christian  tribunal.1  Everything  drove  them  to 


1  These  synods  frequently  met  after  the  twelfth  century,  and 


347 


unity  in  those  long  years  of  horror  and  cruelty  known  as 
the  Middle  Ages.  Had  they  been  disunited  they  would 
have  suffered  still  more.  By  common  action  they  could 
defend  themselves  the  more  easily  and  escape  some  of  the 
calamities  that  threatened  them  without  end.  Though 
their  life  was  made  miserable  by  the  imposition  of  num¬ 
erous  regulations,  the  fraternal  aid  which  they  rendered 
one  another  enabled  them  frequently  to  evade  the  num¬ 
berless  burdens  which  were  piled  upon  them.  At  the  same 
time  the  ancient  relations  between  synagogue  and  syna¬ 
gogue  were  maintained,  and  in  this  manner  the  cosmo¬ 
politan  spirit  of  the  Jews  was  preserved  with  their 
solidarity.  The  communities  frequently  came  to  one  an¬ 
other’s  aid  and  instances  of  this  bond  of  sympathy  are 
plentiful,  such  as  that  very  characteristic  act  of  the 
Levantine  Jews,  who,  after  the  martyrdom  of  the  Jews 
of  Ancona,  made  a  common  agreement  to  suspend  all 
commercial  relations  with  that  town  and  to  transfer 
their  trade  to  Pesaro,  where  Guido  Ubaldo  had  received 
the  fugitives  from  Ancona.  The  Doctors  and  the  Rabbis 
encouraged  this  feeling  of  solidarity  which  was  further 
increased  by  the  spirit  of  Talmudic  exclusiveness.  In 
the  eleventh  century  a  Rabbinical  synod  at  Worms,  for¬ 
bade  a  Jewish  landlord  to  rent  out  his  house,  occupied 
by  a  Jew,  to  a  Gentile  without  the  consent  of  the  tenant.* 1 
and  a  council  of  the  twelfth  century  forbade  a  Jew, 

constituted  the  first  general  assemblies  of  the  Rabbis  since  the 
closing  of  the  Talmud.  Jacob  Tam  (Rabbenu  Tam),  the 
founder  of  the  school  of  Tossafists,  was  the  first  to  bring  about 
the  reunion  of  such  assemblies,  for  the  purpose,  undoubtedly,  of 
considering  means  of  common  resistance  to  persecution. 

1  Jost,  Oe8chichte  der  Juden ,  Berln,  1820,  Vol.  2. 


348 


under  the  pain  of  anathema,  to  bring  a  fellow  Jew  be¬ 
fore  a  Christian  tribunal.  The  Jewish  community,  or 
Kahal,  made  use  of  a  powerful  weapon  against  those 
who  proved  themselves  lacking  in  the  spirit  of  solidarity  ; 
it  struck  them  with  anathema  and  pronounced  against 
them  the  Cherem  Hakahdl  (the  ban  of  the  community). 
This  excommunication  fell  upon  all  those  who  failed  in 
their  duty  to  the  community;  those,  for  instance,  who 
refused  to  acknowledge  the  full  value  of  their  possessions 
in  order  to  evade  the  taxes  imposed  for  the  maintenance 
of  the  synagogue;  those  who,  in  drawing  up  a  legal  in¬ 
strument  with  a  fellow  Jew,  omitted  to  have  such  docu¬ 
ment  attested  by  the  notary  of  the  community;  those 
who  would  not  submit  to  any  decision  arrived  at  by  the 
Kahal  for  the  common  welfare;1  finally,  all  those  who 
by  word  or  writing  attacked  the  Law  and  the  Talmud, 
and  worked  for  the  destruction  of  Israel.  Mordechai 
Kolkos,  Uriel  Acosta  and  Spinoza  were  among  the  last. 

In  this  manner,  the  action  of  time,  the  influence  of 
hostile  legislation  and  of  religious  persecution,  and  the 
need  for  mutual  defense,  have  intensified  the  feeling  of 
fellowship  among  the  Jews.  In  our  own  day  the  power¬ 
ful  institution  of  the  Kahal  exerts  its  influence  wherever 
the  Jew  is  subjected  to  a  rigorous  regime,  and  even  the 
reformed  Jew,  who  has  broken  away  from  the  narrow 
restrictions  of  the  synagogue,  and  yields  no  obedience  to 
the  will  of  the  community,  has  not  forgotten  the  spirit 
of  solidarity.1  Once  having  acquired  the  sentiment 

1  Maurice  Aron,  Histoire  de  V excommunication  juive,  Nîmes, 
A.  Catelan,  1882. 

'The  Alliance  Israelite  Universelle,  founded  in  1860  by 


349 


of  union  and  fostered  it  by  the  habit  of  ages,  they  could 
not  get  rid  of  it  in  getting  rid  of  their  faith.  It  had 
become  a  social  instinct,  and  social  instincts,  slowly 
formed,  are  slow  to  disappear.  This  also  should  be  kept 
in  mind  :  the  J ew  had  taken  his  place  as  a  member  of 
society  on  a  basis  of  equality  with  the  rest  of  the  people, 
but  he  nevertheless  constituted  a  minority,  and  the  law 
which  impels  minorities  to  unite  may  be  said  almost  to 
be  a  corollary  of  the  law  of  self-preservation.  A  number 
of  individuals  in  the  presence  of  an  overpowering  aggre¬ 
gation  will  perceive  that  to  preserve  their  existence  by 
the  side  of  the  majority,  they  must  unite  their  forces 
in  order  to  offer  a  successful  resistance  to  an  outside 
power  which  threatens  to  destroy  them,  that  they  must 
form  a  compact  unit,  become,  in  other  words,  an  or¬ 
ganized  minority;  not  that  it  has  leaders,  or  theoretic 
rulers,  or  a  government  and  laws,  but  because  it  con¬ 
sists  of  small  groups  firmly  united  and  acting  in  constant 
co-operation.  A  Jew  will  always  obtain  assistance  from 
his  co-religionists,  provided  he  be  found  faithful  to  the 
ties  of  Jewish  brotherhood;  but,  if  on  the  contrary,  he 
prove  hostile  to  the  sentiment  of  Jewish  unity,  he  will 
meet  with  nothing  but  hostility.  The  J  ew,  even  though 
he  may  have  departed  from  the  synagogue,  is  still  a 


Adolphe  Cremieux,  and  numbering  at  present  more  than  thirty 
thousand  members,  has  served  only  to  foster  the  fraternal  spirit 
among  the  Jews.  The  aims  of  the  Alliance  are  to  ameliorate 
the  intellectual  and  moral  conditions  of  the  Jews  in  the  Orient 
\y  the  establishment  of  schools,  to  take  measures  for  their  relief 
from  oppression,  and  to  bring  about  their  complete  emancipa¬ 
tion. 


350 


member  of  the  Jewish  free-masonry,1  of  the  Jewish 
clique,  if  you  will. 

United,  then,  by  the  strongest  feelings  of  solidarity, 
the  Jews  can  easily  hold  their  own  in  this  disjointed 
and  anarchic  society  of  ours.  If  the  millions  of  Chris¬ 
tians  by  whom  they  are  surrounded  were  to  substitute 
this  same  principle  of  co-operation  for  that  of  individ¬ 
ual  competition,  the  importance  of  the  Jew  would  im¬ 
mediately  be  destroyed.  The  Christian,  however,  will 
not  adopt  such  a  course,  and  the  Jew  must  inevitably,  I 
will  not  say  dominate,  the  favorite  expression  of  the 
antisémites,  but  certainly  possess  the  advantage  over 
others,  and  exercise  that  supremacy  against  which  the 
Antisémites  inveigh,  without  being  able  to  destroy  it, 
seeing  that  its  reason  lies  not  only  in  the  middle  class 
among  the  Jews,  but  in  the  Christian  bourgeoisie  as  well. 
The  accusations  enumerated  above  are  therefore  the  ex¬ 
pression  of  hatred  on  the  part  of  the  Christian  capitalist 
who  sees  himself  outdistanced  and  supplanted  by  his 
J ewish  rival  ;  but  such  accusations  do  not  constitute  the 
basis  of  economic  antisemitism,  the  real  cause  of  which 
I  have  just  demonstrated. 

If  we  keep  in  mind,  then,  this  conception  of  Jewish 
fellowship  and  the  fact  that  the  J ews  at  present,  consti¬ 
tute  an  organized  minority,  we  are  not  unjust  in  con¬ 
cluding  that  antisemitism  is,  in  part,  a  mere  struggle 
among  the  rich,  a  contest  among  the  possessors  of  capi¬ 
tal.  In  truth,  it  is  the  capitalist,  the  merchant,  the 
manufacturer,  the  financier,  among  the  Christians,  who 

1 1  am  not  speaking,  of  course,  of  Masonic  lodges,  but  use  the 
Word  Free  Masonry  in  the  broad  meaning  of  the  term, 


351 


feels  himself  injured  by  the  Jews,  and  not  the  Christian 
proletariat,  who  suffer  no  more  from  the  class  of  J ewish 
employers  than  from  their  Christian  masters;  less,  in¬ 
deed,  if  we  consider  that  in  a  case  like  this,  where  num¬ 
bers  count,  the  entrepreneur  class  among  the  Jews  by 
comparison  with  the  Christians  amounts  to  little.  This 
will  explain  why  antisemitism  is  essentially  the  senti¬ 
ment  of  the  middle  classes,  and  why  it  is  so  rarely  met 
with,  except  in  the  form  of  a  vague  prejudice  among 
the  mass  of  the  peasants  and  the  working  classes. 

This  war  within  the  ranks  of  capital  does  not  reveal 
itself  after  the  same  fashion;  it  presents  rather  two  as¬ 
pects,  according  as  it  arises  from  the  hostility  between 
the  landowning  class  and  the  capitalist  class  in  the  nar¬ 
rower  sense,  or  from  competition  within  the  industrial 
class  itself. 

The  agrarian  capitalist,  in  his  contest  against  the 
captain  of  industry,  has  embraced  antisemitism,  because 
to  the  territorial  lord,  the  Jew  is  the  representative  of 
commercial  and  industrial  capitalism.  For  this  reason, 
in  Germany,  the  Agrarian  Protectionists,  are  bitter 
enemies  of  the  Jews,  who  are  among  the  most  conspicu¬ 
ous  champions  of  free  trade.  By  instinct  and  self- 
interest  the  Jews  are  opposed  to  the  physiocratic  theory 
which  would  vest  political  power  only  in  the  owners  of 
land  ;  they  maintain  rather  the  theory  of  modern  indus¬ 
trialism,  which  makes  political  power  go  hand  in  hand 
with  industrial  development.  Jews  and  Agrarians  both 
are  probably  unconscious,  as  individuals,  of  the  part 
they  are  playing  in  the  economic  struggle,  but  their 
mutual  hatred  comes  from  this  source,  nevertheless. 


352 


The  man  of  the  lower  middle  class,  the  small  tradesman 
whom  speculation  has  probably  ruined  has  much  clearer 
ideas  of  why  he  is  an  Antisémite.  He  knows  that  reck¬ 
less  speculation,  with  its  attendant  panics,  has  been  his 
bane,  and  for  him,  the  most  formidable  jugglers  of 
capital,  the  most  dangerous  speculators  are  the  Jews; 
which,  indeed,  is  very  true.  Those  even  whose  down¬ 
fall  has  not  been  caused  by  speculation,  ascribe  their 
misfortunes  indirectly  to  this  cause  which  has  destroyed 
a  great  part  of  the  industrial  and  commercial  capital  of 
the  world.  But  here,  as  everywhere,  they  make  the  J ew 
responsible  for  a  state  of  things,  of  which  he  is  far  from 
being  the  sole  cause. 

The  other  form  of  economic  antisemitism  is  more 
simple.  It  arises  from  the  direct  competition  between 
Jewish  and  Christian  brokers,  manufacturers,  and  mer¬ 
chants.  The  Christian  capitalist,  acting  for  the  most 
part,  independently  of  his  fellows,  when  confronted  by 
the  harmonious,  if  not  united,  opposition  of  the  Jewish 
capitalists,  finds  himself  necessarily  at  a  disadvantage, 
and  in  the  daily  struggle  for  life  frequently  succumbs  to 
his  adversaries.  He,  therefore,  suffers  directly,  from 
the  rise  of  Jewish  manufacturers  and  merchants. 
Hence  his  extreme  animosity  against  the  Jews,  and  the 
desire  to  break  the  power  of  his  fortunate  rivals.  This 
is  the  most  violent,  the  most  bitter  of  all  the  manifes¬ 
tations  of  antisemitism,  because  it  is  the  expression  of 
the  sentiments  of  those  who  feel  themselves  injured  in 
their  personal  interests. 

One  might  be  tempted  to  find  an  indication  of  anti¬ 
semitism  proceeding  from  direct  competition,  in  the  dis- 


353 


play  of  hostility  by  the  working  classes  against  the  Jews 
of  London  and  New  York.  This,  however,  would  not  be 
exactly  true.  Russian  and  Polish  immigration  into 
England  and  the  United  States  has  brought  about  a 
considerable  increase  in  the  working  population  of  the 
great  industrial  centres,  and  as  a  result  has  occasioned 
a  great  decrease  in  wages  and  brought  about  the  rise  of 
the  hideous  sweating  system  in  the  East  End  of  London 
and  on  the  East  Side  of  New  York.  There  has  conse¬ 
quently  been  some  agitation  against  the  Jewish  proletar¬ 
ians,  especially  against  the  members  of  the  tailors’ 
trades,  who  constitute  a  majority  of  the  immigrants. 
This  movement,  however,  has  nothing  inherently  anti- 
semitic  in  it,  but  is  similar  to  the  opposition  aroused 
among  workingmen  in  other  countries  by  the  importa¬ 
tion  of  foreign  labor;  such  is  the  case  with  the  Italian 
and  Belgian  laborers  in  France,  whom  the  employers 
eagerly  seize  on  at  very  great  advantage  to  themselves.1 
The  same  is  true  of  competition  in  the  middle  class. 
If  there  this  movement  is  consciously  antisemitic,  it  is 
not  solely  because  the  Jews  form  a  free-masonry  or  a 


1 A  clearer  idea  of  economic  antisemitism  may  be  obtained 
from  a  study  of  the  Chinese  Question  in  America.  Constituting 
\  minority  in  race  and  religion  and  differently  endowed  from 
the  Americans,  the  Chinese,  through  their  firm  organization, 
have  aroused  the  fear  of  the  capitalists,  who  accuse  them  of 
draining  the  country  of  its  wealth,  and  of  reducing  wages  by 
their  entrance  into  the  labor  market.  The  feeling  of  hostility 
against  the  Chinese  has  given  rise,  besides  the  anti-immigration 
law,  to  legislative  measures  greatly  curtailing  their  rights, 
checking  their  influence,  and  limiting  their  opportunities.  Sim¬ 
ilar  measures  have  been  proposed  against  German  and  Russian 
immigration. 


minority  too  well-organized.  As  a  matter  of  fact  the 
Protestants  are  organized  after  a  similar  fashion,  and 
yet,  save  in  rare  instances,  Anti-Protestantism  does  not 
rage  any  more  in  France  than  Anti-Catholicism  in  Eng¬ 
land,  where  in  their  turn  the  Catholics  form  a  powerful 
minority.  There  must  be  another  cause,  and  that,  one 
of  capital  importance.  It  is  this.  The  Jews,  it  is  true, 
are  a  minority  like  the  French  Protestants  or  the  Ger¬ 
man  Catholics,  but  the  Protestants  in  France  and  Catho¬ 
lics  in  Germany  form  a  national  minority,  whereas  the 
Jews  are  regarded  as  strangers.  We  find  ourselves  in 
the  presence  therefore  of  a  struggle,  which  is  not  merely 
a  contest  betwen  two  forms  of  capital,  or  between  a 
number  of  capitalists,  but  rather  a  conflict  between  na¬ 
tional  capital  and  capital  which  is  looked  upon  as  for¬ 
eign.  It  is  the  continuation  of  the  old  historic  contest, 
commenced  in  antiquity,  when  the  Ionian  cities  “at¬ 
tempted  to  force  the  Jews  resident  within  their  walls  to 
abjure  their  faith  or  to  bear  the  weight  of  public  dis¬ 
abilities.”1  It  persisted  throughout  the  Middle .  Ages, 
when  the  Jews  were  thought  of  by  the  young  nations 
the  people  which  had  crucified  God,  when  it  was  discov¬ 
ered,  too,  that  this  race  of  strangers  had  concentrated 
in  their  hands  all  wealth.  When  Christian  commerce 
arose,  it,  too,  attempted  to  crush  a  rival  who  seemed  all 
the  more  dangerous  because  he  was  not  sprung  from  the 
soil,  and  it  succeeded  in  part  by  the  establishment  of 
fraternities,  corporations,  and  orders,  by  the  organiza¬ 
tion,  that  is,  of  Christian  wealth. 

This  prejudice  against  the  Jews  has  prevailed  to  the 


1  Theodore  Mommsen,  History  of  Rome. 


355 


preesnt  day,  secret,  instinctive  rather  than  deliberate, 
and  acquired  by  heredity.  People  still  feel  an  intense 
bitterness  against  the  deicides,  and  glance  with  no  fav¬ 
orable  eye  at  their  riches,  for  they  still  find  it  difficult  to 
understand  how  this  tribe  of  miscreants  and  murderers, 
doomed  to  perdition,  can  legitimately  be  the  owners  of 
wealth.  The  belief  is  still  held  that  the  Jew  cannot 
acquire  wealth  without  plundering  the  sons  of  the  soil-: — 
every  owner  of  land  looking  upon  himself  as  its  child. 
If  economic  antisemitism  therefore  must  be  regarded 
as  the  manifestation  of  a  struggle  within  the  ranks  of 
capital,  we  must  not  forget,  too,  that  it  is  an  outcome  of 
the  opposition  between  national  and  foreign  wealth. 


356 


CHAPTER  XV. 

THE  FATE  OF  ANTISEMITISM. 

The  Causes  of  Antisemitism. — Antisemitism  of  the  Pres¬ 
ent  Day  and  Anti- Judaism  in  Former  Times. — The 
Permanent  Cause. — The  Jew  as  a  Stranger  and  the 
Manifestations  of  Antisemitism. — The  Jew  and  As¬ 
similation. — The  Jew  and  His  Surroundings. — 
Modification  of  the  Jewish  Type. — The  Disappear¬ 
ance  of  External  Characteristics. — The  Disappear¬ 
ance  of  Internal  Characteristics. — The  Religion  of 
the  Synagogue  at  the  Present  Day. — The  Decline 
and  Fall  of  Talmudism. — The  Jew  an  Assimilated 
Element. — The  Disappearance  of  Religious  Preju¬ 
dices  Against  the  Jew. — The  Decay  of  the  Spirit  of 
Particularism  and  National  Exclusiveness. — The 
Progress  of  Cosmopolitanism. — Antisemitism  and 
Economic  Change. — The  Struggle  Against  Capital. 
— The  Capitalist  Alliance. — Capital  and  Revolution. 
— The  Antisémites  as  Adversaries  of  Revolution. — 
The  End  of  Antisemitism. 

We  have  seen  then  that  the  causes  of  antisemitism 
are,  in  their  nature,  ethnic,  religious,  political  and  econ¬ 
omic.  They  are  all  causes  of  far  reaching  importance, 
and  they  exist  not  because  of  the  Jew  alone,  nor  because 
of  his  neighbors  alone,  but  principally  because  of  pre¬ 
vailing  social  conditions.  Ignorant  of  the  real  cause  of 


357 


their  sentiments,  those  who  profess  antisemitism,  jus¬ 
tify  their  opinion  by  accusations  against  the  Jew  which, 
as  we  have  seen,  do  not  at  all  agree  with  facts.  Charges 
racial,  charges  religious,  charges  political  and  economic, 
none  of  these  grievances  of  antisemitism  are  well 
founded.  Some,  like  the  ethnic  grievance  arise  from  a 
false  conception  of  race;  others  like  the  religious  and 
political  charges,  are  due  to  a  narrow  and  incomplete 
interpretation  of  historical  evolution;  and  last  of  all, 
the  economic  count,  has  its  justification  in  the  necessity 
of  concealing  the  strife  going  on  within  the  capitalist 
class.  None  of  these  accusations  is  justified.  It 
is  no  more  correct  to  say  that  the  Jew  is  a  pure 
Semite  than  it  would  be  to  say  that  the  European 
peoples  are  pure  Aryans.  There  is,  in  fact,  no  legiti¬ 
mate  basis  for  the  very  notion  of  Aryan  and  Semite,  one 
superior  to  the  other.  We  have  seen  that  there  is  no 
such  thing  as  race  in  the  sense  in  which  the  word  is 
generally  employed,  that  is,  to  denote  a  human  aggre¬ 
gate,  descended  from  the  same  pair  of  primitive  ances¬ 
tors,  and  suffering  no  admixture  of  foreign  elements 
throughout  the  entire  course  of  its  development.  The 
belief  which  made  purity  of  blood  the  basis  of  communal 
life,  even  though  it  must  have  been  justified  at  a  time 
when  humanity  consisted  of  a  number  of  minute  and 
heterogeneous  groups,  was  no  longer  tenable  when  these 
groups  united  to  form  cities.  The  idea,  nevertheless, 
persisted  and  became  an  ethnological  fiction,  which 
ancient  cities  embellished  with  legends  in  recounting 
the  lives  of  their  heroic  founders.  The  fiction  changed 
when  cities  in  turn  began  to  unite,  and  nations  arose; 


358 


but  it  survived  just  the  same  and  gave  rise  to  the  con¬ 
struction  of  interminable  genealogies  for  the  purpose  of 
establishing  a  common  descent  for  all  the  members  of 
the  same  State. 

If  it  is  true  that  the  Jews  are  not  a  race,  it  is  unjust 
to  look  upon  them  as  the  cause  of  undesirable  change  in 
modern  society.  This  is  really  assigning  them  too  im¬ 
portant  a  role,  a  role  of  such  importance  indeed  as  to 
make  the  antisémites  seem  philosemites  in  fact.  To 
make  Israel  the  central  figure  of  the  world’s  history,  the 
leaven  of  peoples,  the  awakener  of  nations,  is  absurd; 
nevertheless  this  is  what  both  the  friends  and  the  enemies 
of  the  Jew  are  guilty  of.  Whether  it  be  Bossuet  or 
Drumont,  they  have  ascribed  to  the  Jew  an  exaggerated 
importance,  which  the  latter,  with  characteristic  untu¬ 
tored  vanity,  has  not  been  loathe  to  accept.  But  of  this 
vanity  we  must  be  rid.  If  the  all-powerful  <■  Church  has 
seen  its  influence  decrease  in  spite  of  the  desperate  ef¬ 
forts  of  the  bourgeoisie  to  revive  it  and  if  religious  in¬ 
difference  advances  with  the  growth  of  revolutionary 
ideas,  the  fault  does  not  rest  with  the  sons  of  Jacob. 
The  Jews  are  not  in  themselves  the  creators  of  present 
conditions,  but  merely  by  the  force  of  inherited  habits 
have  been  more  able  to  adapt  themselves  to  prevailing 
circumstances.  They  are  not  the  founders  of  this  capi¬ 
talistic,  financiering,  stock- jobbing,  trading,  manufac¬ 
turing,  society  of  ours,  though  they  have  profited  by  it 
more  than  any  others.  They  enjoy  at  present  many 
great  advantages,  not  because  they  resort  to  methods  of 
procedure  which  are  unfair  or  dishonest,  as  their  adver¬ 
saries  declare,  but  because  in  the  course  of  centuries, 


359 


hostile  legislation,  religions  persecutions  and  the  politi¬ 
cal  and  social  restrictions  under  which  they  lived,  have 
served  to  prepare  them  for  the  present  form  of  society, 
by  equipping  them  with  superior  weapons  for  the  daily 
struggle  of  life. 

Still  though  the  Jews  are  not  a  race,  they  were,  until 
our  own  days,  a  nation.  They  did  not  fail  to  perpetuate 
their  national  characteristics,  their  religion  and  their 
theological  code,  which  was  at  the  same  time  a  social 
code.  Though  they  were  never  guilty  of  working  for 
the  destruction  of  Christianity,  and  were  never  organized 
in  a  secret  conspiracy  against  Jesus,  they  did  lend  aid 
to  those  who  assailed  the  Christian  religion,  and  in  all 
attacks  on  the  Church,  they  were  ever  in  the  front  rank. 
In  the  same  way,  even  if  they  did  not  constitute  a  vast 
secret  society,  implacably  pursuing  through  the  centur¬ 
ies  as  its  object,  the  undermining  of  monarchy,  they  did 
render  important  aid  to  the  cause  of  Devolution.  In  the 
nineteenth  century  they  were  among  the  most  ardent  ad¬ 
herents  of  the  liberal,  social,  and  revolutionary  parties, 
to  which  they  contributed  men  like  Lasker  and  Disraeli, 
Crémieux,  Marx  and  Lasalle,1  not  counting  the  obscure 
herd  of  agitators.  To  the  revolutionary  cause,  too,  they 
contributed  their  wealth.  Finally,  as  I  have  just  said, 
if  they  did  not,  by  themselves,  erect  the  throne  of 
triumphant  capitalism  on  the  ruins  of  the  old  regime 
the  were  instrumental  in  its  erection.  Thus  are  the 
Jews  found  at  the  opposite  poles  of  modern  society.  On 

1  This  is  not  the  place  to  discuss  the  respective  importance  of 
these  men,  who  differed  among  themselves  in  so  many  ways;  it 
is  sufficient  here  to  recall  the  part  they  severally  played. 


360 


the  one  hand  they  labor  assiduously  at  that  enormous 
concentration  of  wealth,  which,  no  doubt,  is  bound  to 
result  in  its  expropriation  by  the  State;  on  the  other 
hand,  they  are  among  the  most  bitter  foes  of  capital. 
Opposed  to  the  Jewish  money  baron,  the  product  of  exile, 
of  Talmudism,  of  hostile  legislation  and  persecution, 
stands  the  Jewish  revolutionist,  the  child  of  biblical  and 
prophetic  tradition,  that  same  tradition  which  animated 
the  fanatic  Anabaptists  of  Germany  in  the  sixteenth 
century,  and  the  Puritan  warriors  of  Cromwell.  In  the 
midst  of  the  many  transformations  which  our  age  has 
witnessed,  they  have  not  remained  inactive  ;  indeed,  it  is 
their  activity  which  has,  I  will  not  say  caused,  but  rather 
perpetuated,  antisemitism,  for  antisemitism  is  but  the 
successor  of  the  anti- Judaism  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Long 
ago,  in  Spain,  the  persecution  of  the  Moriscoes  and 
the  Marranos  was  an  attempt  to  eliminate  a  foreign  ele¬ 
ment  in  the  Spanish  nation;  and  in  the  same  way  the 
Jews  were  regarded  as  a  strange  tribe,  a  horde  of  dei- 
cides,  whose  aim  was  by  propaganda  to  infuse  their  spirit 
into  the  Christian  peoples,  and,  in  addition,  to  obtain 
possession  of  great  wealth,  the  importance  of  which  was 
becoming  apparent  even  during  the  early  years  of  the 
Mediæeval  period.  Antisemitism,  at  present,  in  Eastern 
Europe,  at  least,1  finds  different  expression  from  that  of 
former  times  ;  the  charges  brought  against  the  J ew  have 

1  In  Eastern  Europe,  in  Persia  and  in  Morocco,  we  have  an 
approximately  correct  picture  of  the  antisemitic  movement  of 
the  Middle  Ages.  Social  prejudice,  restrictive  legislation,  in¬ 
sults,  humiliations,  riots,  massacres,  exile,  nothing  is  wanting. 
This,  I  believe,  I  have  proved  for  Russia  and  Roumania,  in 
Chapter  viii. 


361 


also  varied,  in  that  they  are  formulated  after  a  different 
fashion  and  are  given  a  basis  of  ethnologic  and  anthro¬ 
pologic  theory;  but  the  causes  have  not  altered  appre¬ 
ciably,  and  modern  antisemitism  differs  from  the  anti- 
Judaism  of  former  times  only  in  that  it  is  more  self- 
conscious,  more  pragmatic,  and  more  deliberate.  At  the 
bottom  of  the  antisemitism  of  our  own  days,  as  at  the 
bottom  of  the  anti- Judaism  of  the  thirteenth  centurv 
are  the  fear  of,  and  the  hatred  for,  the  stranger.  This  -is 
the  primal  cause  of  all  antisemitism,  the  never  failing 
cause.  It  appears  in  Alexandria  under  the  Ptolemies, 
in  Rome  during  the  lifetime  of  Cicero,  in  the  Greek 
cities  of  Ionia,  in  Antioch,  in  Cyrenaica,  in  feudal  Eu¬ 
rope,  and  in  the  modern  state  whose  soul  is  the  spirit 
of  nationality. 

Let  us  leave  now  this  old  anti- Judaism  and  concern 
ourselves  only  with  the  antisemitism  of  modern  times. 
A  product  of  the  spirit  of  national  exclusiveness  and  of 
a  reaction  on  the  part  of  the  conservative  spirit  against 
the  tendencies  set  into  motion  by  the  Revolution,  all  the 
causes  which  have  brought  it  about,  or  have  served  to 
maintain  it,  may  be  reduced  to  this  one  only  :  the  J ews 
are  not  as  yet  assimilated;  that  is  to  say,  they  have  not 
yet  given  up  their  belief  in  their  own  nationality.  By 
the  practice  of  circumcision,  by  the  observation  of  their 
special  rules  of  prayer  and  their  dietary  regulations, 
they  still  continue  to  differentiate  themselves  from  those 
around  them  ;  they  persist  in  being  Jews.  Not  that  they 
are  incapable  of  the  sentiment  of  patriotism — the  Jews 
in  certain  countries,  as  in  Germany,  have  contributed 
more  than  anybody  else  to  the  realization  of  national 


362 


unity — but  they  seem  to  solve  the  apparently  unsolvable 
problem  of  constituting  an  integral  part  of  two  nation¬ 
alities  ;  if  they  are  Frenchmen,  or  if  they  are  Germans,1 
they  are  also  Jews,  and  if  they  succeed  in  gaining  some 
slight  appreciation  as  Germans  or  as  Frechmen,  their 
Judaism  does  not  fail  to  invoke  the  liveliest  reproach. 
Among  all  nations  they  are  regarded  as  the  Americans 
regard  the  Chinese,  as  an  aggregation  of  strangers  who 
have  secured  possession  of  the  same  privileges  as  tire 
native-born,  but  who  refuse  to  give  up  their  separate 
identity.  They  are  still  considered  as  different  from  the 
rest,  and  the  more  the  nations  take  on  their  peculiar 
characteristics,  the  more  marked  these  differences  become. 
In  the  great  process  of  evolution  which  leads  every  people 
to  assimilate  harmoniously  the  various  elements  which 
compose  it,  the  Jews  are  the  refractory  element.  They 
are  always  the  stiff-necked  nation,  against  which  the 
lawmaker  launches  his  anathema.  They  still  cling  to 
forms  of  social  life  long  since  abolished  and  whose  sepa¬ 
rate  existence  has  long  ago  been  destroyed.  In  a  certain 
measure  they  are  a  nation  which  has  survived  its  na¬ 
tionality,  and  for  ages  has  been  resisting  death. 

Why  is  this  so?  Because  everything  has  contributed 
to  maintain  their  peculiar  characteristics  as  a  people; 
because  they  have  been  the  possessors  of  a  religion  which 
is  national  in  character,  and  which  had  its  perfect  reason 

2  The  German  Antisémites  accuse  the  Jews  of  entertaining 
sentiments  hostile  to  Germany,  and  of  partiality  for  the  inter¬ 
ests  of  France  ;  but  the  French  antisémites,  in  turn,  reproach 
the  Jews  with  entertaining  a  tender  regard  for  Germany.  This 
is  merely  a  way  of  saying  that  the  Jews  are  strangers,  or,  to  put 
it  in  a  better  form,  are  not  yet  assimilated. 


363 


for  existence  while  the  Jews  constituted  a  people,  but 
which  ceased  to  be  of  service  after  the  Dispersion  and 
now  tends  only  to  keep  them  apart  from  the  rest  of  the 
world;  because  all  over  Europe  they  have  established 
colonies  jealous  of  their  prerogatives,  and  clinging  firmly 
to  their  customs,  to  their  religious  practices,  to  their 
manners  of  life;  because  they  have  been  living  for  ages 
under  the  domination  of  a  theological  code,  which  has 
rendered  them  immobile  ;  because  the  laws  of  the  numer¬ 
ous  countries  in  which  they  have  made  their  abode,  to¬ 
gether  with  prejudice  and  persecution,  have  prevented 
them  from  mingling  with  the  body  of  the  people;  be¬ 
cause  since  the  second  exodus,  since  their  departure,  that 
is,  from  Palestine,  they  have  raised  around  themselves, 
and  others  have  raised  around  them  rigid  and  insur¬ 
mountable  barriers.  Such  as  they  are  they  are  the  re¬ 
sult  of  a  slow  process  of  creation,  on  their  own  part, 
and  on  the  part  of  others  :  their  intellectual  and  moral 
life  is  what  it  is,  because  others  made  it  their  object 
to  differentiate  the  Jews  from  the  world,  and  the  Jews 
themselves  devoted  themselves  to  the  same  object.  They 
feared  defilement  through  contact,  and  they  were  feared 
in  turn  as  a  source  of  defilement.  Their  doctors  for¬ 
bade  them  to  unite  with  the  Christians,  and  the  Chris¬ 
tian  lawmakers  forbade  all  union  with  the  Jews.  Of 
their  own  impulse  they  devoted  themselves  to  the  occu¬ 
pation  of  money-changing,  and  they  were  forbidden  to 
exercise  any  other  profession  than  that;  of  their  own 
accord,  they  separated  themselves  from  the  world,  and 
they  were  forced  by  others  to  remain  in  the  Ghettoes. 

In  this  manner  did  they  remain  different  from  those 


364 


who  lived  beside  them.  Before  their  emancipation, 
however,  they  escaped  the  notice  of  man.  They  held 
themselves  apart,  and  no  one  came  into  contact  with 
them.  Their  portion  was  allotted  to  them;  their  terri¬ 
tory  was  marked  out  for  them,  and  they  lived  on  the 
outskirts  of  society,  without  retarding  in  the  least  the 
general  course  of  events,  for  they  did  not  constitute  a 
part  of  society.  Once  they  were  liberated,  they  scattered 
themselves  everywhere,  appearing  before  the  eyes  of  men 
such  as  the  ages  had  made  them.  They  produced  the 
same  impression  that  would  be  experienced  now,  if  of  a 
sudden  all  the  Gypsies  of  the  world  should  rally  to  civili¬ 
zation,  and  demand  their  place  in  society.  The  environ¬ 
ment  in  which  the  Jews  had  been  living  for  so  long  a  time 
had  changed,  but  they  themselves  had  not  changed,  and 
it  required  more  than  the  decree  of  the  National  Assem¬ 
bly  to  accomplish  such  a  feat.  The  product  of  a  religion 
and  of  a  law,  the  Jews  could  not  alter  unless  that  law 
and  that  religion  were  altered. 

Here  we  find  ourselves  confronted  with  a  most  serious 
objection.  The  antisémites  are  not  content  with  say¬ 
ing  that  the  Jew  belongs  to  a  different  race,  and  is 
therefore  a  stranger,  but  they  declare  that  he  is  by  nature 
an  element  which  can  never  be  assimilated  ;  and  even  if 
some  of  them  admit  that  the  Jew  may  become  a  con¬ 
stituent  part  in  the  composition  of  nations,  they  would 
have  it  that  such  an  amalgamation  is  only  detrimental 
to  that  nation.  The  Semite,  it  is  maintained,  saps  the 
strength  of  and  destroys  the  Aryan,  and  this  in  spite  of 
the  antisemitic  theory  that  the  superior  race  is  bound 
to  overcome  the  inferior  race  without  being  in  the  least 


365 


affected  by  it.  Are  the  Jews  then  incapable  of  assimila¬ 
tion?  Not  the  least  in  the  world,  and  their  entire  his¬ 
tory  proves  the  contrary.  It  shows  us* 1  how  large  is  the 
number  of  Jews  who  have  become  mixed  with  the  other 
nations  through  baptism,  how  numerous  were  their  con¬ 
versions  in  the  Middle  Ages;  how  many  Jews  have  been 
absorbed  by  the  surrounding  population,  going  over  of 
their  own  free  will  to  Christ,  or  driven  to  the  baptismal 
font  by  the  violence  of  monks  and  fanatical  kings.  Jews, 
in  short,  of  whom  we  can  no  longer  find  any  trace,  just 
as  we  can  no  longer  find  any  traces  of  the  Goths,  the 
Alamani  and  the  Suevi,  who  with  many  other  peoples 
united  to  form  the  French  nation.  At  all  times  the 
J ew,  like  all  Semites,  has  been  in  touch  with  the  Aryan  ; 
at  all  times  there  has  been  intercommunication  between 
the  two  races,  and  nothing  can  serve  better  to  prove  that 
their  assimilation  is  possible.  Besides,  to  demonstrate 
that  the  Jews  cannot  be  assimilated,  it  is  necessary  to 
prove  that  they  are  incapable  of  change,  for  a  human 
being  incapable  of  adapting  himself  to  his  surroundings, 
can  no  more  be  merged  into  any  social  aggregation  than 
a  foreign  element  can  enter  into  the  economy  of  the 
human  body.  But  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  Jews  have 
been  constantly  transformed  by  their  surroundings.  If 
we  find  certain  resemblances  between  the  Spanish  Jew 
and  the  Jew  of  Bussia1  we  find  also  marked  differences, 
and  these  differences  are  due  not  only  to  the  absorption 
of  other  races,  attracted  and  converted  by  the  Jew,  but 

I  Chap.  x. 

I I  am  speaking,  of  course,  of  the  Jews  who  have  remained 
true  to  their  faith. 


366 


are  the  result  also  of  the  Jew’s  natural  environment,  so¬ 
cial,  moral,  and  intellectual.  The  Jewish  type  has  varied 
not  only  geographically,  but  has  changed  through  time; 
it  is  a  truism  that  the  Jew  of  the  Eoman  Ghetto  was 
not  the  same  as  the  Jew  who  fought  under  Bar-Cochba, 
just  as  the  Jew  of  our  great  European  cities  does  not 
resemble  the  Jew  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Of  course,  the 
differences  which  I  have  pointed  out  as  prevailing  among 
Jews  of  different  countries  and  of  different  times,  aie 
less  striking  than  their  resemblances;  but  that  only 
proves  that  the  artificial  environment  in  which  the  Jew 
has  been  forced  to  live  has  proved  more  effective  than  his 
natural  environment.  This  is  always  true  in  the  history 
of  Man,  that  he  is  less  affected  by  climatic  conditions 
against  which  he  is  always  in  reaction,  than  by  his  social 
surroundings.  The  Jew  has  been  no  exception  to  this 
law  of  human  evolution,  and  it  is  not  the  snows  of 
Poland,  or  the  burning  suns  of  Spain  that  have  been  the 
principal  factors  in  his  development.  He  has  been  re¬ 
duced  to  a  state  of  petrifaction  by  the  hostile  laws  of  the 
nations  in  which  he  lived,  and  by  his  religion,  a  puis¬ 
sant  and  fearful  religion,  like  all  non-metaphysical  reli¬ 
gions  which  are  characterized  predominantly  by  a  ritual 
and  a  Law.  For  the  Jew  this  religion  and  this  Law 
have  always  been  the  same,  in  all  times  and  all  places. 
They  have  been  constant  forces  in  his  development,  both 
externally  and  internally. 

But  during  the  last  hundred  years,  these  seemingly 
constant  factors  have  undoubtedly  undergone  a  change.1 


1 1  must  repeat  once  more  that  I  am  speaking  now  only  of  the 
Jews  of  Western  Europe,  who  have  been  admitted  to  the  rights 


367 


There  are  no  longer  external  legislative  restrictions  on  , 
the  J ew  ;  the  special  laws  to  which  he  was  formerly  sub¬ 
jective  have  been  abolished,  and  henceforth,  he  is  amen¬ 
able  only  to  the  laws  of  the  country  of  which  he  is  a 
citizen  (and  these  laws,  let  me  remark,  differing  with 
every  country  constitute  in  themselves  a  factor  of  differ¬ 
entiation  for  the  Jew).  With  the  disappearance  of  dis¬ 
criminating  laws,  his  own  peculiar  laws  have  also  dis¬ 
appeared.  The  Jew  no  longer  lives  apart,  but  shares  in 
the  common  life  ;  is  no  longer  a  stranger  to  the  civiliza¬ 
tion  of  the  countries  which  have  received  him;  has  no 
longer  a  literature  of  his  own;  nor  manners  that  mark 
him  as  different  from  others.  In  short,  he  has  adapted 
himself  to  the  mode  of  life  of  whatever  nation  he  adheres 
to.  And  as  these  modes  of  life  differ  from  nation  to 
nation,  they  serve  to  create  marked  differences  among 
the  Jews  themselves,  with  the  progress  of  time  creating 
more  and  more  striking  variety  among  them.  Day  by 
day  they  are  departing  from  the  class  of  occupations  and 
the  type  of  religion  peculiar  to  the  Jew.  These,  it  is 
true,  still  exist,  but  they  are  maintained  only  by  inter¬ 
nal  factors,  by  faith,  by  religious  practices,  and  the 
manners  of  life  which  they  impose,  but  which,  necessar¬ 
ily,  inevitably,  indeed,  must  disappear. 

At  the  presnt  day,  the  religious  practices  of  the  Jews 
vary  with  the  different  countries.  While  in  Galicia,  for 
example,  the  utmost  minutiae  of  religious  observances 
are  still  maintained;  in  France,  in  England,  and  in 

of  citizenship  in  the  countries  where  they  live,  and  not  of  the 
Jews  of  the  East,  who  are  still  subject  to  discriminating  laws, 
as  in  Roumania,  in  Russia,  in  Morocco,  and  in  Persia, 


368 


Germany  they  are  reduced  to  the  minimum.  If  the 
study  of  the  Talmud  is  still  held  in  respect  in  Poland, 
in  Russia,  and  in  certain  parts  of  Germany  and  Austria- 
Hungary,  in  other  countries  it  has  fallen  into  complete 
disrepute.  The  gulf  betwen  the  emancipated  Jew  of 
France  and  the  Talmudic  Jew  of  Galicia  widens  day  by 
day;  and  in  this  manner  differences  are  created  in  the 
midst  of  Israel,  differences  which  may  be  even  observed 
between  the  reformed  J ew  and  the  orthodox. 

Still  more  important,  however,  is  the  fact  that  the 
Talmudic  spirit  is  slowly  vanishing.  Such  schools  of 
the  Talmud  as  still  exist  in  Western  Europe  are  disap¬ 
pearing  day  by  day  :  the  modern  J  ew  is  not  even  able  to 
read  Hebrew;  freed  from  the  bonds  of  the  rabbinical 
code,  the  synagogue  of  the  present  day  professes  at  most 
a  sort  of  ceremonial  deism,  and  deism  itself  is  losing 
its  strength  with  the  modern  Jew,  making  every  re¬ 
formed  Jew  ready  for  rationalism.  Nor  is  it  only  Tal¬ 
mudism  that  is  dying,  but  the  J ewish  religion  itself  is  in 
its  death  agony.  It  is  the  oldest  of  all  existing  religions, 
and  it  would  seem  right  that  it  should  be  the  first  to  dis¬ 
appear.  Direct  contact  with  the  Christian  world  has 
started  it  upon  its  course  of  dissolution.  For  a  long  time 
it  has  endured  as  all  bodies  endure  which  are  deprived  of 
light  and  air  :  but  once  a  breach  is  made  in  the  cavern  in 
which  it  has  been  sleeping,  the  sun  and  the  fresh  breath 
of  the  outside  air  have  entered  and  it  has  fallen  apart. 
Together  with  the  Jewish  religion,  the  Jewish  spirit  is 
vanishing.  True  it  is  that  that  was  the  spirit  which 
animated  Heine  and  Boerne,  Marx  and  Lassalle,  but 
they  were  still  the  products  of  the  Jewry;  they  were 


369 


cradled  in  traditions  which  the  young  Jews  of  to-day 
overlook  or  despise.  At  the  present  time,  if  there  is  still 
such  a  thing  as  Jewish  personality,  it  tends  to 
disappear.  In  this  manner  the  Jews,  made 
up  as  they  are  of  several  dissimilar  strata,  which 
similar  conditions  of  external  life,  similar  intellectual 
tendencies,  similar  religious,  moral  and  social  character¬ 
istics  have  united,  are  now  resuming  their  heterogeneity. 
The  constant  factors  in  their  evolution  have  become 
variable,  and  their  artificial  uniformity  is  disappearing 
for  the  reason  that  the  Jewish  faith,  the  Jewish  prac¬ 
tices,  and  the  Jewish  spirit,  and  with  this  faith,  prac¬ 
tices,  and  spirit,  the  Jews  themselves,  are  disappearing. 
What  religious  persecution  could  not  bring  about,  the 
decline  of  religious  faith,  based  upon  national  ideal  has 
accomplished.  The  emancipated  Jew,  freed  alike  from 
hostile  legislation  and  obscurant  Talmudism,  far  from 
being  an  element  to  absorb  others,  has  become  an  element 
that  can  be  readily  absorbed.  In  certain  countries,  as 
in  the  United  States,  the  distinction  between  Jews  and 
Christians  is  rapidly  disappearing.1  It  is  vanishing 
from  day  to  day,  because  from  day  to  day  the  Jews  are 
abandoning  their  ancient  prejudices,  their  peculiar 
modes  of  worship,  the  observance  of  their  special  laws  of 
prayer  and  their  dietary  regulations.  They  no 
longer  persist  in  the  belief  that  they  are  destined  always 
to  remain  a  people  ;  they  no  longer  dream — a  touching 
dream,  perhaps,  but  ridiculous — that  they  have  an  eter¬ 
nal  mission  to  fulfill.  The  time  will  come  when  they 
shall  be  completely  eliminated  ;  when  they  shall  be 


1  Henry  George,  Progress  and  Poverty. 


370 


merged  into  the  body  of  the  nations,  after  the  same  man¬ 
ner  as  the  Phoenicians,  who,  having  planted  their  trad¬ 
ing  stations  all  over  Europe  disappeared  without  leaving 
a  trace  behind  them.  By  that  time,  too,  antisemitism 
will  have  run  its  course.  The  moment,  to  be  sure,  is  not 
near  ;  the  number  of  orthodox  Jews  is  still  great,  and  as 
long  as  they  exist  it  would  seem  that  antisemitism 
must  exist.  Still  antisemitism  is  not  caused  solely  by 
Israel;  it  is  the  product  of  religious,  ethnic,  and  econ¬ 
omic  causes  which  are  independent  of  the  Jew,  and 
which  are  also  capable  of  modification  and  of  ultimate 
disappearance.  In  our  own  day  we  may  say  that  their 
decline  is  a  fact. 

If  Judaism,  then,  is  in  the  process  of  dissolution, 
neither  is  Catholicism  or  Protestantism  gaining  in 
strength,  and  we  may  venture  to  say  that  every  external 
form  of  religion  is  losing  its  influence.  The  contrary, 
of  course,  is  maintained  in  the  case  of  the  Christian  re¬ 
ligion  ;  but  in  doing  so,  people  are  either  the  victims  of 
an  illusion,  or  else  are  guided  by  selfish  interests.  As 
Guyau  has  said,2  “Religion  has  found  defenders  among 
the  skeptics  who  support  it  partly  out  of  regard  for  the 
poetry  of  life  and  the  æsthetic  beauty  which  lies  in 
myths,  and  partly  for  its  practical  utility.”  This  neo¬ 
mysticism  is  an  outgrowth  of  that  hunger  for  poetry  and 
beauty,  which  believes  that  it  can  find  satisfaction  only 
in  religious  illusion.  As  for  the  practical  value  of  re¬ 
ligion  we  see  it  now  sustained  by  that  same  capitalistic 
bourgeoisie  which  formerly  attacked  all  religious  belief 
in  so  far  as  it  was  the  ally  of  the  partisans  of  the  ancient 


3  M.  Guyau,  L'Irréligion  de  Vavenir ;  Paris,  1893,  p.  xix. 


371 


regime,  but  who  now  call  upon  religion  to  strengthen 
their  influence  and  defend  their  own  privileges.  These, 
however,  are  only  artificial  manifestations;  religion  it¬ 
self  in  any  positive  or  definitely  prescribed  form  is 
rapidly  disappearing.  On  the  one  hand,  we  are  advanc¬ 
ing  towards  a  narrow  and  stupid  materialism,  opposed  to 
all  religious  feeling;  on  the  other,  our  way  is  towards  a 
state  of  philosophic  and  moral  un-religion  which  shall 
be  “a  degree  higher  than  religion  or  civilization  itself.”1 
At  the  same  time  while  these  tendencies  are  increasing, 
religious  prejudice  is  tending  to  disappear,  and  the  pre¬ 
judice  of  Christian  against  Jew,  and  of  Jew  against 
Christian,  persistent,  in  its  way,  as  the  prejudice  of  the 
Catholic  against  the  Protestant,  cannot  possibly  be  the 
only  one  to  remain.  Even  now  it  is  decreasing  in  in¬ 
tensity,  and  the  time  is  near,  no  doubt,  when  every  Jew 
will  no  longer  be  held  responsible  for  the  sufferings  of 
Jesus  on  Calvary.  With  the  steady  extinction  of  reli¬ 
gious  animosities,  one  of  the  causes  of  antisemitism  must 
disappear,  and  antisemitism  itself  must  lose  much  of  its 
violence,  though  exist  it  will,  so  long  as  the  economic  and 
ethnic  causes  which  have  made  it,  endure. 

The  spirit  of  national  egotism  and  self-sufficiency, 
however  strong  it  may  be  at  present,  is  also  showing  signs 
of  decay.  Other  ideas  have  arisen,  which  from  day  to 
day  are  gaining  in  influence  ;  they  enter  into  the  spirits 
of  men,  they  impress  themselves  upon  their  understand¬ 
ing,  they  engender  new  conceptions  and  new  forms  of 
thought.  Though  the  principle  of  nationality  is  still  a 
guiding  force  in  international  politics,  brutal  and  un- 

1  M.  Guyau,  loc.  cit.,  page  xv. 


372 


reasoning  hatred  against  the  foreigner  is  no  longer  up¬ 
held  as  a  doctrine.1  A  new  civilization  is  in  the  process 
of  making,  common  to  all  enlightened  nations — a  civi¬ 
lization  of  humanity  that  shall  be  above  the  French 
civilization,  or  the  German  civilization,  or  the  English 
civilization.  Science,  literature,  and  the  arts  are  be¬ 
coming  international;  not  that  they  are  losing  those 
peculiar  characteristics  which  constitute  their  charm  and 
their  value,  nor  that  they  are  all  aiming  at  the  same 
deadly  uniformity,  but  because  they  are  animated  by  the 
same  spirit.  The  brotherhood  of  nations  which  form¬ 
erly  was  a  mere  chimera,  may  be  dreamt  of  now,  without 
transcending  the  limits  of  common  sense.  The  sentiment 
of  human  solidarity  is  growing  stronger;  and  the  num¬ 
ber  of  thinkers  and  writers  who  labor  at  furthering  its 
growth  is  increasing  from  day  to  day.  The  nations  are 
coming  into  closer  touch,  and  are  learning  to  know  one 
another  better,  admire  one  another,  love  one  another.  In¬ 
creased  facilities  of  communication  tend  to  favor  the 
development  of  the  cosmopolitan  spirit,  and  this  spirit 
of  cosmopolitanism  will  unite  one  day  the  most  diverse 
of  races  in  a  peaceful  Federation  of  definite  entities, 
substituting  universal  altruism  for  selfish  patriotism. 
The  Jews  are  bound  to  profit  by  this  decline  of  national 
exclusiveness,  in  that  it  must  coincide  with  the  partial 
elimination  of  their  own  peculiar  characteristics.  The 
progress  of  internationalism  must  bring  about  the  de¬ 
cay  of  antisemitism.  Parallel  with  the  decline  of  na- 

1  Exceptions  are  the  class  of  sublimated  patriots,  who,  in 
France,  for  instance  are  Anglophobes  and  Germanophobes,  on 
principle  rather  than  for  any  ascertainable  reason. 


373 


tional  prejudices  the  Jews  will  witness  the  economic 
causes  of  antisemitism  losing  their  force.  At  present 
the  Jews  are  assailed  as  the  representatives  of  foreign 
wealth.  It  is  therefore  just  to  suppose  that  when  the 
animosity  against  things  foreign  shall  have  disappeared, 
Jewish  capital  will  no  longer  be  an  object  of  attack  for 
Christian  capital.  Competition  will,  of  course,  persist 
in  spite  of  all  this,  and  those  Jews  who  persist  in  main¬ 
taining  their  national  identity,  will  always  remain  the 
objects  of  an  hostility  based  upon  this  competitive 
struggle. 

Other  events,  however,  and  other  changes  may  bring 
about  the  disappearance  of  these  economic  causes.  In 
the  struggle  which  is  now  on  between  the  proletariat  and 
the  industrial  and  financial  classes,  we  shall  possibly  see 
Jewish  and  Christian  capitalists  forgetting  their  dif¬ 
ferences  to  unite  against  a  common  enemy.  If  present 
social  conditions  persist,  however,  such  a  union  of  the 
Christian  and  Jewish  bourgeoisie  can  only  bring  about 
a  temporary  truce.  From  the  battle  which  must  in¬ 
evitably  be  fought  out,  the  indications  are  that  Capital 
cannot  come  out  the  victor.  Founded  upon  egoism,  upon 
selfishness,  upon  injustice,  upon  lies,  and  upon  theft,  our 
present  society  is  doomed  to  disappear.  However  bril¬ 
liant  it  may  appear,  however  resplendent,  refined,  lux¬ 
urious,  magnificent,  it  is  stricken  with  death.  It  has 
been  weighed  morally  and  found  wanting.  The  bour¬ 
geoisie  which  exercises  all  political  power  because  it  holds 
control  of  all  economic  agencies,  will  draw  upon  its 
resources  in  vain;  in  vain  will  it  appeal  to  all  the 
armies  that  defend  it,  to  all  the  tribunals  of  justice 


374 


that  watch  over  it,  to  all  the  legal  codes  that  pro¬ 
tect  it  ;  it  will  not  be  able  to  withstand  the  in¬ 
flexible  laws  which  day  by  day  are  working  towards  the 
substitution  of  communal  property  for  the  capitalistic 
régime. 

Everything  is  tending  to  bring  about  such  a  consum¬ 
mation.  With  its  own  hands  the  class  of  property  owners 
is  working  destruction;  for  whenever  a  certain  class  of 
possessors  enter  into  a  struggle  for  the  attainment  of 
their  selfish  interests  they  are  unconsciously  fighting 
against  themselves,  and  to  the  advantage  of  their 
enemies.  Every  intestine  struggle  within  the  capitalist 
class  must  redound  to  the  benefit  of  the  revolutionary 
cause.  In  proclaiming  war  against  the  J ewish  capitalist, 
the  Christian  capitalists  are  warring  upon  themselves, 
and  are  helping  to  undermine  the  foundations  of  that 
state  of  society  of  which  they  are  the  most  ardent  cham¬ 
pions.  Such  is  the  irony  of  things  that  antisemitism 
which  everywhere  is  the  creed  of  the  conservative  class, 
of  those  who  accuse  the  Jews  of  having  worked  hand  in 
band  with  the  Jacobins  of  1789  and  the  Liberals  and 
Revolutionists  of  the  nineteenth  century,  this  very  anti¬ 
semitism  is  acting,  in  fact,  as  an  ally  of  the  Revolution. 
Drumont  in  France,  Pattai  in  Hungary,  Stoecker  and 
von  Boeckel  in  Germany  are  co-operating  with  the  very 
demagogues  and  revolutionists  whom  they  believe  they 
are  attacking.  This  antisemitic  movement,  in  its  origin 
reactionary,  has  become  transformed  and  is  acting  now 
for  the  advantage  of  the  revolutionary  cause.  Anti¬ 
semitism  stirs  up  the  middle  class,  the  small  tradesmen, 
and  sometimes  the  peasant,  against  the  Jewish  capitalist, 


375 


but  in  doing  so  it  gently  leads  them  toward  Socialism, 
prepares  them  for  anarchy,  infuses  in  them  a  hatred  for 
all  capitalists,  and,  more  than  that,  for  capital  in  the 
abstract. 

And  thus,  unconsciously,  antisemitism  is  working  its 
own  ruin,  for  it  carries  in  itself  the  germ  of  destruc¬ 
tion.  Nor  can  it  escape  its  fate.  In  preparing  the  way 
for  Socialism  and  Communism,  it  is  laboring  at  the 
elimination  not  only  of  the  economic  cause,  but  also  of 
the  religious  and  ethnic  causes  which  have  engendered  it, 
and  which  will  disappear  with  this  society  of  ours  of 
which  they  are  the  products. 

Such,  then,  is  the  probable  fate  of  modern  anti¬ 
semitism.  I  have  tried  to  show  how  it  may  be  traced 
back  to  the  ancient  hatred  against  the  Jews;  how  it 
persisted  after  the  emancipation  of  the  Jews,  how  it 
has  grown  and  what  are  its  manifestations.  I  have  at¬ 
tempted  to  discover  the  reasons  for  this  existence,  and 
having  determined  those,  have  ventured  to  predict  its 
future  on  the  basis  of  them.  In  every  way  I  am  led  to 
believe  that  it  must  ultimately  perish,  and  that  it  will 
perish  for  the  various  reasons  which  I  have  indicated  > 
because  the  Jew  is  undergoing  a  process  of  change;  be¬ 
cause  religious,  political,  social,  and  economic  condi¬ 
tions  are  likewise  changing;  but  above  all,  because  anti¬ 
semitism  is  one  of  the  last,  though  most  long  lived, 
manifestations  of  that  old  spirit  of  reaction  and  narrow 
conservatism,  which  is  vainly  attempting  to  arrest  the 
onward  -movement  of  the  Revolution. 


THE  END. 


Preface 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE. 

5 


I. 

GENERAL  CAUSES  OF  ANTISEMITISM. 

Exclusiveness. — The  Political  and  Religious  Cult. — Jehovah 
and  the  Law. — Civil  and  Religious  Regulations. — Jew¬ 
ish  Colonies. — The  Talmud. — The  Chosen  People  Doc¬ 
trine. — Jewish  Pride. — Separation  from  the  Nations. — 
Pollution. — The  Pharisees  and  the  Rabbinites. — The 
Faith,  Tradition  and  Secular  Science. — The  Triumph  of 
the  Talmudists. — Jewish  Patriotism. — The  Mystic  Fa¬ 
therland. — The  Restoration  of  the  Kingdom  of  Israel. — 

The  Isolation  of  the  Jew .  7 

II. 

ANTI- JUDAISM  IN  ANTIQUITY. 

The  Hykos. — Haman. — Antisemitism  in  Ancient  Society. — 

In  Egypt,  Manetho,  Chaeremon,  Lysimachus. — Anti¬ 
semitism  at  Alexandria. — The  Stoics  :  Posidonius,  Ap¬ 
ollonius  Molo. — Apion,  Josephus  and  Philo. — “Treatise 
Against  the  Jews,”  the  “Contra  Apionem,”  and  the 
“Legation  to  Caius.” — The  Jews  at  Rome. — RomanAn- 
tisemitism. — Cicero,  Disciple  of  Apion,  and  Pro  Flacco. 
Persius,  Ovid  and  Petronius. — Pliny,  Suetonius  and 
Juvenal. — Seneca  and  the  Stoics. — Government  Meas¬ 
ures. — Antisemitism  at  Antioch  and  in  Ionia. — Anti¬ 
semitism  and  Antichristianity .  26 

III. 

ANTI- JUDAISM  IN  CHRISTIAN  ANTIQUITY  FROM 
THE  FOUNDATION  OF  THE  CHURCH 
OF  CONSTANTINE. 

The  Church  and  the  Synagogue. — Jewish  Privileges  and  the 
First  Christians. — Jewish  Hostility. — Judaic  Patriot¬ 
ism. — Christian  Proselytism  and  the  Rabbis. — Attacks 
upon  Christianity. — The  Apostates  and  Maledictions. — 
Stephen  and  James. — Jewish  Influence  Contested. — 
Christianity  Among  the  Pagans  and  Among  the  Jews. 

— Peter  and  Paul. — Judaizing  Heresies. — The  Ebion- 
ites,  the  Elkasaites,  the  Nazarenes,  the  Quartodecimans. 
Gnosticism  and  Jewish  Alexandrinism. — Simon  the 
Magician,  the  Nicolaites  and  Cerinthus. — First  Apos- 


377 


PAGE. 

tolic  Scriptures  and  the  Tendencies  of  the  Judaizing. — 

The  Epistles  to  the  Colossians  and  Ephesians,  the  Pas¬ 
torals,  the  Second  Epistle  of  Peter,  the  Epistle  of  Jude, 
the  Apocalypse.— -The  Epistle  to  Barnabas,  the  Seven 
Letters  of  Ignatius  of  Antioch. — Christian  Apologists 
and  Jewish  Exegesis.- — The  Letter  to  Diognetus. — The 
Testament  of  the  Twelve  Patriarchs. — Justin  and  the 
Dialogue  with  Tryphon. — Aristo  of  Pella  and  the  Dia¬ 
logue  of  Jason  with  Papiscus. — Christian  Expansion 
and  Jewish  Proselytism. — Rivalries  and  Hatred  ;  Per¬ 
secutions  ;  The  Case  of  Polycarp. — The  Polemics.— The 
Bible,  the  Septuagint,  Aquilla’s  Version  and  the  Hex- 
apla. — Origen  and  Rabbi  Simlai. — Abbahu  of  Cæsarea  - 
and  the  Physician  Jacob  the  Minæan. — The  Contra  Cel- 
sum  and  Jewish  Ridicule. — Theological  Anti- Judaism. 

— Tertullian  and  De  Adversus  Iudaeos. — Cyprian  and 
The  Three  Books  Against  the  Jews. — Minucius  Felix. — 
Commodian  and  Lactantius. — Constantine  and  the  Tri¬ 
umph  of  the  Church .  42 

IV. 

ANTISEMITISM  FROM  CONSTANTINE  TO  THE 
EIGHTH  CENTURY. 

The  Church  Triumphant. — The  Decadence  of  Judaism. — 

The  Passover  and  the  Judaizing  Heresies. — The  Council 
of  Nicaea. — Transformation  of  Theological  Anti- Juda¬ 
ism.- — Conclusion  of  Apologetics. — The  Anti-Judaism  of 
the  Fathers  and  Clergy. — Abuse. — Hosius,  Pope  Sylves¬ 
ter,  Eusebius  of  Cæsarea,  Gregory  of  Nyssa  and  St. 
Augustine. — St.  Ambrose,  St.  Jerome,  and  St.  Cyril 
of  Jerusalem. — St.  John  Chrysostom. — Ecclesiastical 
Writers. — The  Edict  of  Milan  and  the  Jews. — Jewish 
and  Christian  Proselytism. — The  Jews,  the  Church,  and 
the  Christian  Emperors. — Influence  of  the  Church 
upon  Imperial  Legislation. — Roman  Laws. — Vexatious 
Treatment  of  the  Jews. — Popular  Movements. — The 
Defense  of  the  Jews,  Their  Revolts. — Isaac  of  Sep- 
phoris  and  Natrona. — Benjamin  of  Tiberias  and  the 
Conquest  of  Palestine. — Julian  the  Apostate  and  the 
Jewish  Nationality. — The  Jews  Among  the  Nations. — 
Anti-Judaism  Becomes  General. — In  Persia. — The  Magi, 
the  Jewish  Teach*,  j  and  Jewish  Academies. — In  Ara¬ 
bia. — Influence  of  the  Jews  in  Yemen. — Victory  of 
Mohammedanism  and  Persecution  of  the  Jews. — Spain 
and  the  Visigothic  Laws. — The  Burgundians. — The 


378 


PAGE. 

Franks  and  Roman  Legislation. — Canon  Law,  the 
Councils,  and  Judaism. — The  Condition  and  Attitude 
of  the  Jews. — Catholicism .  G2 

V. 

ANTI- JUDAISM  FROM  THE  EIGHTH  CENTURY  TO 

THE  REFORMATION. 

Expansion  and  Christianity. — Diffusion  of  the  Jews  Among 
the  Nations. — Constitution  of  the  Nationalities. — The 
Role  of  the  Jews  in  Society. — The  Jews  and  Commerce. 

— Gold  and  the  Jews. — The  Love  of  Gold  and  Business 
Acquired  by  the  Jews. — The  Jew  as  Colonist  and  Emi¬ 
grant. — The  Church  and  Usury. — The  Birth  of  Patron¬ 
age  and  Wage-System. — Transformation  of  Property. — 

The  Economic  Revolution  and  the  Quest  of  Gold. — The 
Instinct  of  Domination. — Gold  and  Jewish  Exclusivism. 
Maimonides  and  Observation. — Solomon  of  Montpellier. 

— Ben-Adret,  Asher  ben  Yechiel,  and  Jacob  Tibbon. — 

The  Moreh  Nebukhim . — Intellectual  and  Moral  Abase¬ 
ment  of  the  Jews. — The  Talmud. — Influence  of  this 
Abasement  on  the  Social  Position  of  the  Jews. — Trans¬ 
formation  of  Anti-Judaism. — Social  Causes  ;  Religious 
Causes;  Their  Combination. — The  People  and  the  Jews. 

— The  Pastoureaux,  the  Jacques  and  the  Armleders. — 

The  Kings  and  the  Jews. — The  Monks  and  Anti-Juda¬ 
ism. — Pierre  de  Cluny,  John  of  Capitrano,  and  Berna- 
dinus  of  Feltre. — The  Church  and  Theological  Anti- 
Judaism. — Christianity  and  Mohammedanism. — The  Al- 
bigenses,  the  Heretics  of  Orleans,  the  Pasagians. — 
Heresies  and  Judaization. — The  Hussites. — The  Inqui¬ 
sition. — The  Bourgeoisie  and  the  Jews. — Ecclesiastic 
and  Civil  Legislation  Against  the  Jews. — Controversies 
and  Condemnation  of  the  Talmud. — Vexations. — Expul¬ 
sions. — Massacres. — The  Condition  of  the  Jews  and  of 
the  People. — The  Relativity  of  the  Jewish  Sufferings. — 

The  Reformation  and  the  Renaissance! .  SI 

VI. 

ANTI- JUDAISM  FROM  THE  TIME  OF  THE  REFORMA¬ 
TION  TILL  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 

Position  of  the  Jews  at  the  Beginning  of  the  Sixteenth  Cen¬ 
tury. — Defeat  of  the  Moors. — Banishment  from  Spain. — 
Softening  of  the  Manners. — The  Last  Persecutions. — 

The  Inquisition  in  Portugal. — The  Renaissance  and  the 
Reformation  of  the  Church. — The  Attacks  upon  the 


379 


PAGE. 

Supremacy  of  Rome. — The  Humanists  and  the  Talmud. 

— Reuchlin  and  Pfefferkorn. — The  Reformation  and  the 
Jewish  Spirit. — The  Bible. — Luther  and  the  Jews. — 
Transformation  of  the  Social  and  the  Religious  Ques¬ 
tion. — The  Peasant  Wars. — The  Jews  No  Longer  the 
Chief  Enemies  of  the  Church. — The  Christian  State. — 
Catholicism,  the  Reformed  and  the  Jews. — The  Popes 
and  Judaism. — Measures  Against  the  Talmud  and  Con¬ 
versions. — Anti- Jewish  Legislation. — Molestations  and 
Outrages. — Dogmatic  Anti- Judaism. — The  Recalling  of 
the  Jews. — The  Jews  of  Europe  in  the  Eighteenth  Cen¬ 
tury. — The  Jews  in  the  Netherlands,  England,  Poland, 
Turkey. — The  Portuguese  Jews  in  France. — The  Intel¬ 
lectual  and  Moral  Condition  of  the  Jews. — Kabbalism 
and  Messianism. — Sabbatai  Zevi  and  Franck. — The 
Mystic  Sects  :  the  Chassidim  and  New-Chassidim,  the 
Doumeh  and  the  Trinitarians. — Talmudism. — Joseph 
Caro  and  the  Schulchan  Aruch ;  the  Pilpul. — Jewish 
Reaction  Against  the  Talmud. — Mardochee-Kolkos, 
Uriel,  Acosta,  Spinoza. — Mendelssohn,  the  Meassef  and 
the  Jewish  Emancipation. — Humanitarian  Philosophy 
and  the  Jews. — The  Social  State  and  the  Jews. — The 
Economic  and  the  Political  Objections. — Maury  and 
Clermont-Tonnerre;  Rewbel  and  Grégoire. — The  Revo¬ 
lution. — The  Appearance  of  the  Jews  in  Society .  123 

VII. 

ANTI- JUDAIC  LITERATURE  AND  THE  PREJUDICES. 

Anti- Judaism  of  the  Pen  and  Its  Forms. — Theological  Anti- 
Judaism. — The  Transformation  of  Christian  Apologet¬ 
ics. — Judaization  and  Its  Enemies. — Anselm  of  Canter¬ 
bury,  Isidore  of  Seville. — Pierre  de  Blois. — Alain  de 
Lille. — The  Study  of  Jewish  Books. — Raymond  de 
Penaforte  and  the  Dominicans. — Raymund  Martin  and 
the  Pugio  Fidei. — Nicholas  de  Lyra  and  His  Influence. 
Anti-Jewish  Theological  Literature  and  the  Conver¬ 
sions. — Nicholas  de  Cusa. — The  Converted  Jews  and 
Their  Role. — Paul  de  Santa  Maria,  Alfonso  of  Vallado¬ 
lid. — Anti-Talmudism  and  the  Converts  :  Pfefferkorn. — 

The  Controversies  Over  the  Talmud  and  the  Jewish 
Religion. — Controversies  of  Paris,  Barcelona  and  Tor- 
tosa. — Nicholas  Donin,  Pablo  Christiani  and  Geronimo 
de  Santa  Fe. — The  Extractions  Talmut. — Social  Anti- 
Judaism. — Agobard,  Amolon,  Peter  the  Venerable,  Si¬ 
mon  Maiol. — Polemic  Anti- Judaism. — Alonzo  da  Spina. 


380 


PAGE. 

' — Le  Livre  de  VAlboraique. — Pierre  de  Lancre. — 
Francisco  de  Torrejoncillo  and  the  Gentinela  Contra 
Judios . — Polemic  Anti- Judaism  and  the  Prejudices. — 

The  Jews  and  the  Accursed  Races. — Jews,  Templars  and 
Sorcerers. — Ritual  Murder. — The  Defense  of  the  Jews. 

— Jacob  ben  Ruben,  Moses  Cohen  of  Tordesillas,  Shem- 
Tob  ben  Isaac  Shaprut. — Jewish  Polemic  Literature  in 
Spain  in  the  Fifteenth  Century. — Anti-Christianity. — 
Chasdai  Crescas  and  Joseph  Ibn  Shem  Tob. — The  At¬ 
tacks  Against  the  New  Testament. — The  Nizzachon  and 
The  Book  of  Joseph  the  Zealot. — The  Toldoth  Jesho. — 
Attacks  Against  the  Apostates. — Isaac  Pulgar,  Don 
Vidal  Ibn  Labi. — Transformation  of  Scriptural  Anti- 
Judaism  in  the  Seventeenth  Century. — The  Converters. 

— The  Hebraizers  and  the  Exegetists  :  Buxtorf  and 
Richard  Simon. — Wagenseil,  Voetius,  Bartolocci. — 
Eisenmenger. — John  Dury. — The  Relationship  and 
Similarity  of  Anti- Jewish  Works. — The  Imitators. — 

The  Ancient  Literary  Anti- Judaism  and  the  Modern 
Antisemitism. — Their  Affinities .  147 

VIII. 

MODERN  LEGAL  ANTI- JUDAISM. 

Emancipated  Judaism. — The  Position  of  the  Jews  in  Society. 

— Usury  and  the  Affairs  in  Alsace. — Napoleon  and  the 
Administrative  Organization  of  the  Jewish  Religion. — 

The  Great  Sanhedrin. — The  Restrictive  Laws  and  the 
Progressive  Liberation  in  France. — The  Emancipation 
in  the  Netherlands. — Emancipation  in  Italy  and  Ger¬ 
many. — The  Anti-Napoleonic  Reaction  and  the  Jews. — 

The  Revival  of  Anti-Jewish  Legislation. — Popular 
Movements. — Emancipation  in  England. — In  Austria. — 

The  Revolution  of  1848  and  the  Jews. — The  End  of  Le¬ 
gal  Anti- Judaism  in  the  West. — Eastern  Anti- Judaism. 

— The  Jews  in  Roumania. — The  Russian  Jews. — The 
Persecutions. — The  Social  Question  and  the  Religious 
Question . 178 

IX. 

MODERN  ANTISEMITISM  AND  ITS  LITERATURE. 

The  Emancipated  Jew  and  the  Nations. — The  Jews  and  the 
Economic  Revolution. — The  Bourgeoisie  and  the  Jews. 

— The  Transformation  of  Anti- Judaism. — Anti- Judaism 
and  Antisemitism. — Instinctive  Anti- Judaism  and  Anti¬ 
semitism  of  the  Reason. — Legal  Anti- Judaism  and  Anti- 


381 


PAGE. 

semitism  of  the  Pen. — Classification  of  the  Antisemitic 
Literature. — Christian  Antisemitism  and  the  Anti- 
Judaism  of  the  Middle  Ages. — Anti-Talmudism. — Gou- 
genot  de  Mousseaux,  Chiarini,  Rohling. — Christian- 
Socialist  Antisemitism. — Barruel,  Eckert,  Don  Des- 
champs. — Chabeauty. — Edouard  Drumont  and  the  Pas¬ 
tor  Stoecker. — Economic  Antisemitism. — Fourier  and 
Proudhon  ;  Toussenel,  Capefigue,  Otto  Glaguu. — Ethno¬ 
logical  and  National  Antisemitism. — Hegelianism  and 
the  Race  Idea. — W.  Marr,  Treitschke,  Schoenerer. — 
Metaphysical  Antisemitism.  —  Schopenhauer.  —  Hegel 
and  the  Hegelian  Extreme  Left. — Max  Stirner. — Duhr- 
ing,  Nietzsche  and  Anti-Christian  Antisemitism. — Rev¬ 
olutionary  Antisemitism. — Gustave  Tridon. — The  Com¬ 
plaints  of  the  Antisémites,  and  the  Causes  of  Anti¬ 
semitism .  204 


X. 

THE  RACE. 

The  Ethnologic  Grievance. — The  Inequality  of  Races. — 
Semites  and  Aryans. — Aryan  Superiority. — The  Strug¬ 
gle  of  Semites  and  Aryans. — The  Semitic  Share  in  the 
So-called  Aryan  Civilizations. — The  Semitic  Coloniza¬ 
tion. — The  First  Years  of  the  Christian  Era  and  the 
Judeo-Christians. — The  Jewish  Elements  in  the  Euro¬ 
pean  Nations. — The  Idea  of  Race  Among  the  Jews. — 
Jewish  Superiority. — The  Origins  of  the  Jewish  Race. 

— Foreign  Elements  in  the  Jewish  Race. — Jewish 
Proselytism. — In  Pagan  Antiquity. — After  the  Chris¬ 
tian  Era. — The  Uralo-Altaic  Infiltrations  in  the  Jewish 
Race. — The  Khazars  and  the  Peoples  of  the  Caucasus. 

— Different  Varieties  of  Jews. — Dolichocephals  and 
Brachycephals.  —  Ashkenazim  and  Sephardim.  —  The 
Jews  of  China,  India  and  Abyssinia. — Modification 
Through  Surroundings  and  Language. — Jewish  Unity. 

— Nationality .  225 

XI. 

NATIONALISM  AND  ANTISEMITISM. 

The  Jews  in  the  World. — Race  and  Nation. — Are  the  Jews  a 
Nation? — The  Midst,  the  Laws,  the  Customs. — The  Re¬ 
ligion  and  the  Rites. — The  Language  and  Literature. — 

The  Jewish  Spirit. — Does  the  Jew  Believe  in  His  Na¬ 
tionality? — The  Restoration  of  the  Jewish  Empire. — 
Jewish  Chauvinism. — The  Jew  and  the  Strangers  to 


382 


PAGE. 

His  Law. — Is  the  Talmud  Anti-Social? — Once  and 
Now. — The  Permanence  of  Prejudices. — Jewish  Exclu¬ 
siveness  and  Persistence  of  the  Type. — The  Principle  of 
Nationalities  in  the  Nineteenth  Century. — In  Germany 
and  Italy. — In  Austria,  in  Russia  and  Eastern  Europe. 
Pangermanism  and  Panslavism. — The  Idea  of  National¬ 
ity,  the  Jew  and  Antisemitism. — The  Heterogeneous 
Elements  in  the  Nations. — Elimination  or  Absorption. 

— National  Egoism. — Preservation  or  Transformation. 

— The  Tow  Tendencies. — Patriotism  and  Humanita- 
rianism. — Nationalism,  Internationalism  and  Antisem¬ 
itism. — Jewish  Cosmopolitanism  and  the  Idea  of  Fa¬ 
therland. — The  Jews  and  the  Revolution .  248 

XII. 

THE  REVOLUTIONARY  SPIRIT  IN  JUDAISM. 

Communism  and  Revolution. — The  Jewish  Agitation. — The 
Optimism  and  Eudaemonism  of  Israel. — The  Theories 
of  Life  and  Death. — Immortality  of  the  Soul  and  Res¬ 
ignation. — Materialism  and  Hatred  of  Injustice. — The 
Contract  Idea  in  Jewish  Theology. — The  Idea  of  Jus¬ 
tice. — The  Prophets  and  Justice. — The  Return  from 
Babylon,  the  Ebionim  and  the  Anavim. — The  Concep¬ 
tion  of  Divinity. — Divine  Authority  and  Government  on 
Earth. — The  Zealots  and  Anarchism. — Pluman  Equal¬ 
ity. — The  Rich  Man  and  Evil. — The  Poor  Man  and 
Good. — Yahwehism  and  Liberty. — Free  Will,  Human 
Reason  and  Divine  Power. — Jewish  Individualism. — 
Jewish  Subjectivity  and  the  Feeling  of  Self. — Hebraic 
Idealism. — The  Idea  of  Justice,  the  Idea  of  Equality, 
the  Idea  of  Liberty,  and  Their  Possible  Realization. — 
Messianic  Times. — The  Messiah  and  Revolution. — The 
Revolutionary  Instinct  and  Talmudism. — The  Modern 
Jews  and  Revolution .  275 


XIII. 

THE  JEW  AS  A  FACTOR  IN  THE  TRANSFORMATION 
OF  SOCIETY.  —  POLITICAL  AND  RELIGIOUS 
CAUSES  OF  ANTISEMITISM. 

The  Jew  as  a  Revolutionist. — The  Jews  of  the  Middle  Ages 
and  the  Spirit  of  Skepticism. — Jewish  Rationalism  and 
Christianity. — The  Jews  and  Secret  Societies. — The 
Role  Played  by  the  ews  in  the  French  Revolution  and  in 
the  Upheavals  of  the  Nineteenth  Century. — The  Jews 
and  Socialism. — Political,  Social  and  Religious  Changes 


383 


PAGE. 

at  Work  in  Present-day  Society. — The  Grievances  of 
the  Conservative  Elements  and  Antisemitism. — The  Jew 
as  a  Menace  to  Public  Order  and  a  Solvent  of  Society. 

— The  Judaization  of  Christian  Nations  and  the  Decay 
of  Faith. — Is  the  Jew  Still  Anti-Christian? — The  Per¬ 
sistence  of  Anti- Jewish  Prejudices. — Ritual  Murder. — 

The  Jews  and  the  Talmud. — The  Synagogue  and  the 
Spirit  of  Religious  Indifferentism  Among  the  Jews. — 

The  Emancipated  Jew. — Liberalism,  Anti-Clericalism 
and  the  Jews. — Judaism  and  the  Christian  State. — The 
Modern  Struggle. — The  Spirit  of  Conservatism  versus 
the  Spirit  of  Revolution. — Tradition  and  Change. — 
Antisemitism  in  an  Age  of  Transition. — The  Jew  in 
Society . . . . .  297 

XIV. 

THE  ECONOMIC  CAUSES  OF  ANTISEMITISM. 

Economic  Antisemitism. — The  Case  Against  the  Jew. — The 
Moral  Charge. — The  Dishonest  Jew. — Jewish  Astute¬ 
ness  and  Bad  Faith. — The  Corrupting  Influence  of  the 
Talmud. — Restrictive  Legislation  and  Jewish  Fraud. — 
Mercantilism  and  Usury  as  Causes  of  Degradation. — 
Money  and  the  Decline  of  Morality. — The  Economic 
Charge. — The  Jew  and  Present  Social  Conditions. — 

The  Importance  of  the  Jews  in  Capitalistic  Society. — 

The  Jew  in  Finance  and  in  Industry. — The  Jew  as 
the  Possessor  of  Capital.  —  Disadvantages  Under 
Which  the  Jew  Labors  Under  Present  Conditions. 

— The  Jewish  Proletarians  in  Europe  and  America. 

— The  Jews  of  the  Middle  Class. — The  Relative  Su¬ 
premacy  of  the  Jew. — Causes  of  Such  Supremacy. — 
Jewish  Solidarity  versus  Middle  Class  Individualism. — 

The  Jewish  Brotherhood. — Its  Origin  and  Antiquity. — 

The  Synagogues. — The  Middle  Ages. — The  Ghettoes. 

— Modern  Times. — The  Kahal  in  the  Countries  of  the 
East. — Minorities  in  Western  Europe  and  the  Solidar¬ 
ity  of  Classes. — Opposition  Between  Different  Forms  of 
Capital  as  a  Cause  of  Antisemitism. — Agricultural  Cap¬ 
ital  versus  Industrial  Capital. — The  Jewish  Stock¬ 
broker  and  the  Small  Trader. — Competition  and  anti¬ 
semitism. — Competition  in  the  Ranks  of  Capital  and  in 
the  Labor  Market. — Grievances  Against  the  Jews  and 
Economic  Antisemitism. — Antisemitism  and  the  Intes¬ 
tine  Struggles  of  Capital . . .  330 


384 


PAGE. 

XV. 

THE  FATE  OF  ANTISEMITISM. 

The  Causes  of  Antisemitism. — Antisemtism  of  the  Present 
Day  and  Anti-Judaism  in  Former  Times. — The  Perma¬ 
nent  Cause. — The  Jew  as  a  Stranger  and  the  Manifes¬ 
tations  of  Antisemitism. — The  Jew  and  Assimilation. 

— The  Jew  and  His  Surroundings. — Modification  of  the 
Jewish  Type. — The  Disappearance  of  External  Charac¬ 
teristics. — The  Disappearance  of  Internal  Characteris¬ 
tics. — The  Religion  of  the  Synagogue  at  the  Present 
Day. — The  Decline  and  Fall  of  Talmudism. — The  Jew 
an  Assimilated  Element. — The  Disappearance  of  Relig¬ 
ious  Prejudices  Against  the  Jew. — The  Decay  of  the 
Spirit  of  Particularism  and  National  Exclusiveness. — 

The  Progress  of  Cosmopolitanism. — Antisemitism  and 
Economic  Change. — The  Struggle  Against  Capital. — 

The  Capitalist  Alliance. — Capital  and  Revolution. — The 
Antisémites  as  Adversaries  of  Revolution. — The  End  of 
Antisemitism .  356 


Date  Due 

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